The prayer for the Jews has been changed a few different times in the past 100 years because it's been seen as "offensive".
Issues with the article:
The ultra-conservative society, whose excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI last year, has yet to be fully reintegrated into the Catholic Church, because of its refusal to accept the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The SSPX was not excommunicated --
organizations cannot be excommunicated,
people can be. The four bishops who were consecrated against the express will of Pope John Paul II were excommunicated, along with Abp Lefebvre who founded the society and consecrated the bishops. The excommunications of the
bishops, as individuals, have been lifted. It did not effect the canonical status of the Society.
"Refused to accept the reforms of the Second Vatican Council" is a problematic statement as well. The question of what the reforms even
are has been problematic over the past 40 years. Certainly, they are not as radical as the "spirit of Vatican II" people want to make them out to be. The NO Mass is not directly a result of Vatican II, meaning that it purports to follow the reforms suggested by the Council, but the
second of two Missals produced. The first, the 1965, was not ideal (or even really better than the 1962) but the 1970 was a practical rewrite of the whole thing.
This formulation was a great step forward in comparison to the text of the old Latin prayer, which although Pope John XXIII, who called the Second Vatican Council, had removed the expression perfidious Jews still contained several objectionable expressions. These included an invocation to remove the veil over the hearts of Jews so that they may recognize our Lord Jesus Christ, and a reference to the blindness of the Jewish people.
1) The word
perfidious is not contained within the traditional (pre-1960) prayer, the word
perfidis is. The Latin word
perfidis means "unbelieving" or "faithless", as it is usually translated in the prayer. The English word
perfidious means "treacherous" or "treasonous", a much stronger and more offensive word. However, Pope John XXIII removed the troublesome word in 1960 and the rest of the prayer remained intact.
2) If these other "objectionable expressions" are troublesome, there is a serious problem -- they are straight from the Bible! That is what being a "sign of contradiction" is all about -- speaking the truth rather than worrying about what other people say.
Yes, we are praying for the conversion of the Jews so that they come to Jesus and the Church! Why would we not? Why is that offensive? Wouldn't it be more offensive if we
didn't pray for the conversion of the Jews out of spite? We're Christians, of course we want to convert the world, we want to bring the world to salvation! Christ Himself said that, "Whoever does not know me, does not know my Father" (cf. Jn 8:19), "If God were your Father, you would indeed love me." (Jn 8:42)
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In my parish, the 1960 prayer was used on Friday instead of the 2008 prayer. I assume this was not an intentional oversight...
