Sixty years ago this week, Pope Paul VI issued Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II document dedicated to "The Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions." In it, the Church fathers explore the relationship between Christians and Jews. On this Diamond anniversary of the document, its message is particularly relevant.
On October 28, exactly 60 years since the proclamation of the document, Philos Project hosted a conference at the St. John Paul II Shrine in Washington, DC, titled “Nostra Aetate at 60: The Spiritual Heart of Catholic-Jewish Relations.”
The live conference drew a crowd of 200 with approximately double that number following via livestream.
In Nostra Aetate, the Church fathers affirmed, “Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself.”
This call to unity and friendship between the Church and Jewish people today came up again and again as scholars reflected on the document at 60.
Called to friendship
Papal biographer and author George Weigel gave a keynote address positing that Jews and Catholics are entwined in a way that we don’t fully understand.
“Jews and Catholics are to stand shoulder to shoulder,” he said, against the “culture of death, and collaborate to create a culture of life.”
We often think of our path to God, but Weigel says we should instead consider God’s path to us, a path he believes that Jews and Christians are called to walk together.
While not constantly at the forefront of conference discussions, both the speakers and audience were well aware of current events in the Holy Land and of incidents of anti-semitism.
Deep connection to Judaism
Professor at the Angelicum in Rome Dr. Gavin D’Costa emphasized that we cannot separate Christianity from its roots in Judaism. He echoed Nostra Aetate, which says,
The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles.
The history of Christian and Jewish relations, of course, has been far from easy. D’Costa referenced how Jews were blamed as a people for the death of Christ, which led to both persecution and the loss of the Promised Land.
Luma Simms, born in Iraq, spoke to how anti-semitism has been prevalent throughout the history of the Middle East. While there have been times of peace, often Jews were treated as an “it” rather than a person. This objectification, she says, was also part of indoctrination taught to Muslims and Christians alike.
It is partly because of this fraught history that Nostra Aetate was such a landmark document.
What spiritual friendship looks like today
Simms insisted that we must do the hard work of healing the wounds of the past and standing up for our “elder brethren.”
D’Costa added that spiritual friendship does not mean that we can’t be critical of particular political leaders and actions. We are called, he said, to speak about truth and justice in the current conflict.
Instead, D’Costa argued that Christianity has a responsibility toward our Jewish brothers and sisters to seek the “preservation of the Jewish people so that they may seek holiness.”
Testimony to what is possible
An afternoon panel explored real ways in which friendship between Christians and Jews can and does exist.
Yael Freimann, of Jewish descent, described how her grandfather survived the Holocaust. A Catholic priest hid him, a Jew, in the woods of Belgium and not only helped keep him safe, but encouraged him to practice his Jewish faith.
Freimann also spoke of giving birth while her military family was assigned to Spain, without many other Jewish people present. She recalled how a Catholic priest stepped in and used discretionary funds to fly in someone to do a ceremonial circumcision for her new son, a religious practice that was very important to her.
Kathryn Wolf, a Jew, shared that when she stood in protest of mistreatment of Jewish people some years back, it was actually Christians who stood up beside her.
In the closing lecture, Sr. Maris Stella, SV, Vicar General of the Sisters of Life, shared the words of Cardinal John O’Connor, archbishop of New York at the end of the last century, that capture the mission and the spirit of the conference, “We are spiritual Semites. If we forget our Jewish brothers and sisters, we forget who we are.”
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See article below on how Pope Leo marked the anniversary in Rome:
Specifically, he said:
Finally, we must not forget how Nostra Aetate actually developed. Initially, Pope John XXIII commissioned Cardinal Augustin Bea to present a treatise to the Council describing a new relationship between the Catholic Church and Judaism. We can say, therefore, that the fourth chapter, dedicated to Judaism, is the heart and generative core of the entire Declaration. For the first time in the history of the Church, we have a doctrinal text with an explicitly theological basis that illustrates the Jewish roots of Christianity in a well-founded biblical manner. At the same time, Nostra Aetate (n. 4) takes a firm stand against all forms of antisemitism. Thus, in its following chapter, Nostra Aetate teaches that we cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly or sisterly way any man or woman created in the image of God. Indeed, the Church rejects all forms of discrimination or harassment because of race, color, condition of life or religion (cf. n 5).
