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VATICAN CITY-The top Vatican cardinal in charge of relations with Jews on Thursday denied a new prayer for their conversion was offensive and said Catholics had the right to pray as they wished.Cardinal Walter Kasper(picture left) spoke in an interview in a leading Italian newspaper a day after world Jewish leaders said the new prayer could set back inter-religious dialogue by decades. "I must say that I don't understand why Jews cannot accept that we can make use of our freedom to formulate our prayers," Kasper, a German, told the Corriere della Sera.The Vatican on Tuesday revised a contested Latin prayer used by a traditionalist minority on Good Friday, removing a reference to Jewish "blindness" over Christ and deleting a phrase asking God to "remove the veil from their hearts".Jews criticized the new version because it still says they should recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men. It asks that "all Israel may be saved" and keeps an underlying call to conversion that Jewish leaders had wanted omitted."We think that reasonably this prayer cannot be an obstacle to dialogue because it reflects the faith of the Church and, furthermore, Jews have prayers in their liturgical texts that we Catholics don't like," Kasper said.In a separate interview with Vatican Radio, Kasper said: "The Holy Father wanted to say 'yes, Jesus Christ is the savior of all men, including the Jews'."He added: "But this does not mean we are embarking on a mission (to covert Jews). We are giving witness to our faith."To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah.....
