REVISIONS MADE IN HOLY WEEK PRAYERS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30715, 2 April 1965, Page 13

REVISIONS MADE IN HOLY WEEK PRAYERS

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) VATICAN CITY, April 1 Pope Paul VI has made further revisions in Holy Week prayers to eliminate degrading references to Jews and atheists.

Pope John XXIII had ordered, in March, 1959, that

a centuries-old prayer in the Good Friday service be altered to omit mention of the Jewish people as “perfidious.”

New Pope Paul has made more changes to become effective during Holy Week, April 11-17. These changes came to light today as religious book stores put on sale booklets containing the revised prayers.

The title of one Good Friday prayer has been changed from “Prayer for the Conversion of the Jews” to simply, “Prayer for the Jews.” NINE PRAYERS It is the eighth prayer in a series of nine brief prayers chanted or read at Good Friday services in Roman Catholic churches around the world. The title of the ninth prayer has now been changed from “Prayer for the Conversion of the , Infidels” to “Prayer for the Conversion of Non-believers.” Most dictionaries describe the word “infidel” as having a connotation of reproach in modern popular usage. Elsewhere in the collection of prayers, Pope Paul has struck out words like “sinners” where applied specifically to non-Christians only, and phrases asking that such people be “delivered from their iniquity.” Instead the prayer for the Jews has been revised to acknowledge that they are “the people of Abraham beloved by God” and asks for them “fullness of grace.”

UNUSUALLY warm sunshine for March has brought daffodils into bloom in Britain. At the Royal Horticultural Society’s show in Westminster £9 a bulb is being paid for an Irish novelty—white with a salmon-tinted cup. It is called Drumboe.