Good Friday prayer for the Jews

The Good Friday prayer for the Jews is an annual prayer in some Christian liturgies. It is one of several petitions, known in the Catholic Church as the Solemn Intercessions and in the Episcopal Church (United States) as the Solemn Collects, that are made in the Good Friday service for various classes and stations of peoples: for the Church; for the pope; for bishops, priests and deacons; for the faithful; for catechumens; for other Christians; for the Jews; for others who do not believe in Christ; for those who do not believe in God; for those in public office; and for those in special need. These prayers are ancient, predating the eighth century at least (as they are found in the Gelasian Sacramentary). Roman Catholicism Background In the early 1920s, the Clerical Association of Friends of Israel, a Catholic organization founded in 1926 to foster positive attitudes toward Jews and to pray for their conversion to Christianity, requested that the phrase "perfidious Jews" (Latin: ; Italian: ) be removed from the liturgy. Pope Pius XI was reportedly strongly in favour of the change and asked the Congregation of Rites to review the matter. Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, who was among the Friends of Israel, was appointed to monitor this issue. The Roman Curia, however, is reported to have reacted very negatively to the proposal on the basis that if one change was made to the old liturgy it would invite other such proposals. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dissolved the association on 25 March 1928. Changes by Pius XII After World War II, Eugenio Zolli, the former Chief Rabbi of Rome and a convert to Roman Catholicism, asked Pope Pius XII to excise the adjective "perfidis" from the prayer for the Jews. Professor Jules Isaac, a French scholar of Catholic-Jewish relations, did so as well in an audience with Pius in 1949. Pius responded with a public declaration that the Latin word "perfidus" means "unbelieving", not "perfidious" or "treacherous". Fifteen years later, Pope John XXIII made that change official.