The top Vatican cardinal in charge of relations with Jews on Thursday denied that a new prayer for their conversion was offensive and said Catholics had the right to pray as they wish.

The Vatican had come under fire from Jewish groups in recent days for changing its Good Friday service to include a prayer urging God to let Jews "recognize Jesus Christ as savior of all men."

Earlier this week, Pope Benedict ordered changes to a Latin prayer for Jews at traditionalist Good Friday services, deleting a reference to their "blindness" over Christ.

Cardinal Walter Kasper 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.

"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,"

"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.

"One must accept and respect differences," said the cardinal.

In a separate interview with Vatican Radio, Kasper said: "The Holy Father wanted to say 'yes, Jesus Christ is the saviour 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."

The Anti-Defamation League on Thursday called the revision to the prayer "cosmetic revisions," saying that the prayer is still "deeply troubling" because of its call to convert Jews.

Apart from the deletion of the word "blindness," the new prayer - which has retained the name 'Prayer for Conversion of the Jews' - also excludes a former a phrase that asked God to "remove the veil from their hearts".

Instead, the new prayer hopes that Jews will recognize Christ. According to an unofficial translation from Latin, the new prayer says in part:

"Let us also pray for the Jews. So that God our Lord enlightens their hearts so that they recognize Jesus Christ savior of all men."

The prayer also asks God that "all Israel be saved."

Jewish groups had protested against the old prayer and had asked the Pope to change it. The groups complained last year when the Pope issued a decree allowing a wider use of the old-style Latin Mass and a missal, or prayer book, that was phased out after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.

"While we appreciate that some of the deprecatory language has been removed from a new version of the Good Friday prayer for the Conversion of Jews in the 1962 Roman Missal, we are deeply troubled and disappointed that the framework and intention to petition God for Jews to accept Jesus as Lord was kept intact," ADL Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a statement.

"Alterations of language without change to the 1962 prayer's conversionary intent amount to cosmetic revisions, while retaining the most troubling aspect for Jews, namely the desire to end the distinctive Jewish way of life," adds the statement.

In a letter to Pope Benedict in late January, the ADL said it worried the new prayer "would be devastating to the deepening relationship and dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people."

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(c) haaretz.com