Recent weeks have seen a number of events marking the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Catholic Church’s dialogue with the world’s religions.
The document came to birth just some 20 years after the second World War and the atrocity of the Nazi ideology’s attempt to wipe out the Jewish people. The church had to painfully recognise a certain complicity in anti-Semitism by its teaching and preaching throughout the centuries.
The document reminded Catholics that Jesus, Mary and the apostles were all Jews, and that the sacred Scripture of the Jews was our sacred Scripture too. In 1974, a Vatican document entitled Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration “Nostra Aetate”, asked Catholics to understand the Jewish people as they understand themselves. In the 60 years since, popes have repeated firmly that anti-Semitism has no place in this world.
Soon after the initial drafting of Nostra Aetate in 1961, Cardinal Bea and others recognised the text could not just be about the Catholic-Jewish relationships. A new world order was emerging, and with it a new recognition on the part of the church of the many positives in other world religions. About 85 per cent of the world’s population follow some religious beliefs.
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Nostra Aetate is a very short document made up of five sections, but it set the foundations for a culture of encounter and dialogue in the name of peace for all peoples. It affirmed that we all belong to one human family with one origin and one goal. Recognising how religions try to respond to “the restlessness of the human heart”, the text declared that the Catholic Church “rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions”.
Over the past 60 years there have been some key iconic moments of inter-religious dialogue such as St John Paul II’s visits to Rome’s synagogue – where he called the Jewish people “our elder brothers and sisters” – and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Pope Benedict going to Auschwitz and Pope Francis’s journeys to Ur of the Chaldeans in Iraq and to Mongolia.
But not to be underestimated is the “dialogue of life”, as it is called, that happens in the workplace, at school and in the neighbourhood. It is made up of everyday simple experiences of contact between people of different religious traditions. This everyday dialogue is important in the context of a rise in racism.
There have been many forms of theological and academic dialogues over the past 60 years. What is called the “dialogue of co-operation or action” has also seen members of different religions come together to work on specific local or global projects such as issues to do with social justice and peace, family, life and care of our common home, etc.
Recent tensions such as the Israel-Gaza war have meant the message of Nostra Aetate has undergone something of a stress test. Yet it can be said that the relationships developed over the past 60 years have helped keep doors of dialogue open. Indeed, Chief Rabbi Rosen, who spent time in Ireland, has noted that it is a credit to Nostra Aetate and the relations built up since its publication, that it has been possible for religious dialogue partners to withstand the stress test.
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Here in Ireland, while the Jewish presence is several centuries old, the Muslim and Hindu populations have grown significantly in recent years. Religious textbooks in Catholic schools now contain introductions to elements of the main world’s religions and they are careful in their teaching regarding the Jewish people.
We can be grateful also that there are various forums of formal dialogue – the Dublin city Inter-Faith Forum, the midwest Interfaith Network, the Northern Ireland Interfaith Forum, and The Cork Three Faiths Forum.
In the last week of October, a number of events in Rome celebrated Nostra Aetate as a milestone declaration. The Sant’Egidio Community organised a meeting for prayer for peace that saw Pope Leo XIV join leaders of the world’s religions at Rome’s Colosseum. Recalling the great event of the Assisi meeting of prayer for peace in 1986, the pope thanked the Community of Sant’Egidio and the many organisations that “keep this spirit alive, even going against the tide”.
Later that evening, Pope Leo took part at an event in the Paul VI Hall in Rome during which he observed that Nostra Aetate “opened our eyes to a simple yet profound principle: dialogue is not a tactic or a tool, but it’s a way of life – a journey of the heart that transforms everyone involved, the one who listens and the one who speaks”.
He went on to remind the religious leaders present that they “share a sacred responsibility: to help our people to break free from the chains of prejudice, anger and hatred; to help them rise above egoism and self-centeredness; to help them overcome the greed that destroys both the human spirit and the earth”.
On the following day, Pope Leo noted how Nostra Aetate “teaches us to meet the followers of other religions not as outsiders, but as travelling companions on the path of truth”.
At a time when all our sensitivities are challenged by the current world order – or disorder – its message is as relevant as ever. Its lessons and legacy are still unfolding. It continues to invite us to search for the “true and holy” in our midst, so that together we may “promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values”.
Bishop Brendan Leahy is Bishop of Limerick and a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Inter-Religious Dialogue
