This year marks the Golden Jubilee of Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), the Second Vatican Council’s shortest document, but by no means its least effective. Promulgated by Blessed Pope Paul VI in 1965, this document sought to understand how the Church relates to other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. What the document is best known for, however, is its groundbreaking progress in the Catholic Church’s relationship with Judaism. Nostra Aetate affirmed that the Church’s faith and election can be found “already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets,” recognized that the gifts and calls of God to the Jewish people are irrevocable, and rejected the claim that all Jews are responsible for the death of Christ, denounced all forms of anti-Semitism and called for an ongoing dialogue between Catholics and Jews.
Rabbi Noam Marans, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious relations, recently noted two reasons for the growth in importance of Nostra Aetate, even beyond its initial impact in 1965. Firstly, he mentioned the directives and teachings that the Church issued in the years following Nostra Aetate, “but even more importantly,” he said, “it was the very public gestures of successive popes that gave body to the document.”
This past week, the Catholic University of America held a Symposium on Nostra Aetate, which included a keynote presentation by Timothy Cardinal Dolan and an engaging response from Rabbi Marans. In an age of great tension between major world religions, we are reminded anew that “in our time,” ecumenism bears great fruit.
