Pope won't change controversial Latin prayer, says top cardinal

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the Commission for Relations with the Jews at the Vatican, has told the German television channel ARD that Pope Benedict XVI will not change a Latin prayer which calls for the conversion of Jews because it was theologically correct. The controversial prayer is part of the re-introduced Tridentine Mass, and was recently modified by the Pope to mollify Jewish criticism. However, the new version also calls on Catholics to pray that God "enlighten the heart of Jews" so that "they can know Jesus Christ."  Until Vatican reforms enacted in the 1960s, the prayer called "for the conversion of the Jews" so that God could bring them out of "the darkness" and "blindness."
  
Kasper said that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, would make a statement on the issue after a meeting with rabbis this week. Kasper said he hoped the statement would "make things clearer, not resolve but clarify, and I think we can overcome this irritation for the Jewish world." Jewish groups have expressed strong criticism of the modified prayer.