In the wake of controversy over the recital of a Catholic prayer concerning the conversion of the Jews, David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee said Sunday that Jewish groups' responses were exaggerated.

Rosen said that while the Pontiff's move demanded clarification, the inclusion for conversion of the Jews contained in the old form of the Latin Mass was an implementation of a decision made by his predecessor pope John Paul II in 1998.

He added that very few worshipers recited the said section on the conversion of the Jews.

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Earlier, some Jewish groups complained about the prayer which is recited during the Good Friday service of Easter Week.

The old prayer, contained in the 1962 missal of the Tridentine rite, read: "Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, you do not refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness."

The prayer used in the New Mass according to the Pope Paul VI missal reads: "Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption."