VATICAN CITY, June 30 Some of the world's top Catholic leaders are expressing concern about the pope's plan to bring back a 400-year-old prayer that insults Jews.
Pope Benedict XVI has announced his intent to publish a new version of the 16th century Latin Tridentine Mass, which said Jews live in "blindness" and "darkness."
The mass was rewritten in 1960s to include the word "perfidious" and has been little used since then, the newspaper said.
The pope's reintroduction of the mass has some bishops and cardinals worried it could harm the church's relationship with Jews. British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor reportedly wrote to the pope, asking him to leave the anti-Semitic mass on the shelf.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told the Independent the mass is considered a "great treasure of the church."
The newspaper said the move could be an effort by the pope to bring conservative and ultra-traditional Catholic groups back into the fold.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
