Will Pope Reintroduce Anti-Semitic Mass?

The question appear in recent days in the Israel News, The Independent, and in Canada’s own Babble and Bourque Newswatch. Probably many other places as well.

It illustrates well both the poor quality of religious reporting and the anti-Catholic bias of the media.

Contrary to what the Israel News article plainly states, there is no reference to “perfidious Jews” anywhere in the pre-Vatican, pre-1969, Tridentine, Latin mass. There never was. There is, accordingly, no chance that Benedict might introduce an "anti-Semitic" mass.

Nor is it news that Benedict is thinking of reintroducing the Tridentine mass. The Tridentine Latin mass has been celebrated commonly in Catholic churches since the early eighties or so. He is only contemplating making it easier to do so.

So where's the story?

Nowhere. Here’s all that’s behind it: in pre-1959 versions of the unique Good Friday rite—not the mass—there was a prayer in Latin for the souls of the “perfidis Judaeis.” This does not translate properly into English as “perfidious Jews.” The more correct translation would be “unfaithful Jews.”

It is perfectly proper, of course, from the Catholic perspective, to refer to the Jews as “faithless” –without the faith. Nevertheless, the Church dropped the reference in 1959 for fear of misunderstanding.

That’s it: a trivial textual issue from 1959. The only point of the present story seems to be to take a cheap shot at the Catholic Church.

It amounts to defamation.