One set of mythical beliefs and a dead language upset another group of myth believers

Latin Mass may offend Jews

This is the headline in today's Daily Telegraph.
The whole story of course, is more complex but the headline is indicitive of how ridiculous believers can get.

It seems the cause for alarm is not just that the Catholic Church may revert to saying mass in Latin, but that it may revert to the old mass, which has a section in it praying for Jews' conversion.

Any liturgy that presents Jews as being doomed in their faith doesn't present a very healthy attitude towards Judaism and the Jewish people.

Rabbi David Rosen, the president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations

We have here numerous complexities. One is the inability to seperate religion from culture and race. The specified passage in the old mass should not be offensive to jewish people on a theological or faith level. After all, if Judaism is the true religion and the Catholics are praying to a non-existant God, what's the problem? Also, if the g*d of Abraham and Isaac, being all-powerful etc etc is aware of their prayers, he won't take heed of them because the Jews are his chosen people. BUT, because jewishness is not merely defined by religion, but also ethnicity, you can see why they'd be upset.

On the Catholic side, it becomes apparant that tradition and culture are a stronger force than the theology. The punters want the Latin mass back because it is "more beautiful and inspiring than modern liturgies". It's obviously not because Latin is the official language of god. (or is it?) And how can you be inspired by a language you don't understand? No, hang on, apparantly people weep when they hear Italian opera, but that's another can of worms.

Which ever way it twists, however you analyse it and pick out the rights and wrongs, it is justification of Richard Dawkins' idea that religion is a scourge on humanity.