In a jubilee year, the schedule of the Successor of Peter is particularly busy, but this week has been busier yet. While the Jubilee of Education is ongoing, another big theme is also underway: interreligious dialogue. The 2025 Jubilee is coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of various Vatican II documents, including Nostra Aetate, which took up consideration of the Church's relationship with other religions. It was promulgated precisely on October 28, 1965.
In this context, Pope Leo led on Tuesday afternoon an International Meeting for Peace, promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio, in the evocative setting of the Colosseum.
Then back at the Vatican a few hours later, he met with interreligious leaders to commemorate Nostra Aetate.
Then on Wednesday morning, he dedicated his weekly general audience to the theme of interreligious dialogue.
At the prayer meeting for peace, which follows on a tradition begun in 1986 by Pope John Paul II in Assisi, where he met to pray beside religious leaders, Pope Leo said:
As religious leaders, this is the heartfelt appeal that we make to those in positions of government. We share the desire for peace for all peoples. We are the voice of those who are not heard and the voiceless. We must “dare peace”!
Even if the world turns a deaf ear to this appeal, we are certain that God will hear our prayer and the cries of so many who suffer. God wants a world without war. He will free us from this evil!
In the meeting commemorating the Vatican II document, Pope Leo highlighted four elements of Nostra Aetate:
First, Nostra Aetate reminds us that humanity is drawing closer together, and that it is the task of the Church to promote unity and love among men and women, and among nations (cf. n.1).
Second, it points to what we all share in common. We belong to one human family — one in origin and one also in our final goal. Moreover, every person seeks answers to the great riddles of the human condition (cf. n.1).
Third, religions everywhere try to respond to the restlessness of the human heart. Each, in its own way, offers teachings, ways of life and sacred rites that help guide their followers toward peace and meaning (cf. n.2).
Fourth, the Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions, which “reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all people” (n. 2). She regards them with sincere reverence and invites her sons and daughters, through dialogue and collaboration, to recognize, preserve and promote what is spiritually, morally and culturally good in all peoples.
Then, on Wednesday morning, Pope Leo drew from Jesus' meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. He focused particularly on the relationship of the Church with Judaism.
Today we can look with gratitude at everything that has been achieved in Jewish-Catholic dialogue during these six decades. This is due not only to human effort, but to the assistance of our God who, according to Christian conviction, is dialogue itself.
And he highlighted the need for people of all religions to unite in serving:
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, sixty years after Nostra Aetate, we can ask ourselves: what can we do together? The answer is simple: we can act together. [...]
We must reaffirm service to humanity, at all times. Together, we must be vigilant against the abuse of the name of God, of religion, and of dialogue itself, as well as against the dangers posed by religious fundamentalism and extremism.
