Catholic-Jewish dialogue highlights 40 years of progress
Reconciliation in early stages

MILWAUKEE – More than 140 people gathered in the grand ballroom of the Pfister Hotel Nov. 6 to celebrate four decades of actions that were rooted in nine paragraphs in the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.

The 40th anniversary commemoration of “Nostra Aetate,” Latin for “in our times” – the opening words of the declaration, culminated a year-long celebration of the area’s Catholic-Jewish Dialogue.

Rabbi David Sandmel, one of two keynote speakers for the evening, said it was difficult to overestimate the effect “Nostra Aetate” had on the Jewish community in 1965.

“What it launched is more significant than what it said,” he said.

Noting that while “Nostra Aetate” was not the first document on Catholic-Jewish relations, its “prestige – real or perceived – lent it significance in the world.” world.”

“”Nostra Aetate” introduced a radical change of Catholic thinking toward Jews and Judaism,” said the head rabbi for K.A.M. Isaiah Israel in the Hyde Park area of Chicago.

Rabbi Sandmel said among the key elements in the document was the repudiation of deicide – that the Jews are to blame for the Passion of Jesus – and that Jews were not to be presented as “cursed by God.”

“These references are not part of the church today,” he said.

Another important part of the document, he said, was its rejection of “hatred and anti-Semitism.” He added that subsequent statements, e.g., those of Pope John Paul II, got more specific.

The convenantual partnership expressed in the document as “the Jews still remain most dear to God…” was “a very strong statement – counter to what the church has been teaching,” Rabbi Sandmel said.

He said that other things that were part of the section on Jews, i.e., accurate teaching of biblical texts and theological inquiry among Catholics and Jews, were occurring.

Rabbi Sandmel said that there are still doubts that need to be addressed.

“There is some concern in the Jewish community that Jewish-Catholic dialogue will not remain a priority for Roman Catholics,” he said, adding that the church’s interest in dialoguing with Buddhists and Muslims might “push the Catholic-Jewish dialogue down the priority list.”

He also noted “a lot of work to be done” within the Jewish community.

“Many Jews are ignorant of ‘Nostra Aetate’ and other Vatican and Protestant documents that call for new understanding of Christian-Jewish relations,” he said.

Rabbi Sandmel said the 40th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate” was an opportunity for teaching about the document and for raising its profile.

“I sense there is very little of it being taught in Jewish seminaries,” he said.

While acknowledging the work that needed to be done in Catholic-Jewish relations, Rabbi Sandmel said there was “much for which we should be grateful.”

“We should be humbled by the impact this document has had on our world, our relationship, and how we view each other,” he said.

Calling “Nostra Aetate” an “unfinished symphony,” Dr. Mary C. Boys, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary and a theology professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York, said, “The world needs Jews and Catholics who have a passionate sense of their faith.”

She said that each group “must educate within our traditions what has developed over the last 40 years,” noting that there was “considerably more diversity within religious traditions” today.

“One of the greatest gifts religious traditions give us is that when we enter them deeply, we will never be satisfied,” she said.

Boys said that Catholics and Jews were experiencing the “power of friendship across religious boundaries.”

“We are now able to engage religious differences without polemity,” she said.

Noting that much work in Catholic-Jewish relations had been accomplished, she cautioned, “The work of reconciliation has only just begun.”

Quoting Rabbi Tarphon, a second century sage, she said, “We are not required to complete the work, but neither are we at liberty to abstain from it.”

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