The upcoming 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate – the declaration on the relations of the Catholic Church to non-Christian religions – proclaimed by Blessed Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965, comes at a time when in spite of the persecutions still around, predominantly of Christians, people of goodwill around the globe are embracing a deep desire to see mankind truly come closer together.
Nostra Aetate, adopted by Vatican Council II, expresses the Catholic Church’s appreciation for other religions and reaffirms the principles of universal fraternity, love and non-discrimination. Its influence has brought about rich fruits in the field of interreligious dialogue. Still fresh and challenging, it tells us that all peoples comprise a single community, and have a single origin, while their final goal is also one: God. His providence, His goodness, His saving designs extend to all.
Nostra Aetate expresses the Catholic Church’s esteem for Muslims, who adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself, merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men, and though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere him as a prophet.
“Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims,” declares the document. Vatican Council II “urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom”.
As regards Jews, through Nostra Aetate, Vatican Council II declared that since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is very great, the council wanted to foster and recommend mutual understanding and respect that is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.
In spite of the persecutions, people of goodwill are embracing a desire to see mankind truly come closer together
“True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead, pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today… Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone,” states Nostra Aetate.
There is also an additional fact of fundamental importance: The Church has always maintained that Christ underwent his passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation. It is, therefore, the burden of the Church’s preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God’s all-embracing love and as the fountain from which every grace flows.
For Jews and Christians, their belief in God has certain implications, which St John Paul II believed impel Jews and Christians work together.
Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, identifies five such implications: (i) the insistence on the dignity of the human person, created, according to Genesis, in God’s own image and likeness; (ii) the sanctity of every human life, never a means to an end but an end in itself; (iii) an allegiance to God’s law and truths, as St John Paul commented at Sinai, “written on the human heart before engraved in stone, not to be contradicted by self-will or popular demand”; (iv) solidarity, a sense that we’re all in this together, and that we’re much better off sticking together and looking out for each other than we are locked-up in our own comfort; (v) a mutual world view.
Meeting recently in Rome in the light of Nostra Aetate’s anniversary, members of the International Council of Christians and Jews discussed ‘The past, present, and future of the Christian-Jewish relationship’. In his address to the participants, Pope Francis said Nostra Aetate represented a definitive ‘yes’ to the Jewish roots of Christianity and an irrevocable ‘no’ to anti-Semitism. He added that both faith traditions were no longer strangers, but friends and brothers.
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