Catholics and Jews Use Anniversary to Reflect on Relations
The Vatican's 'Nostra Aetate,' credited with ushering in a new era, was issued 40 years ago.
nynewsday.com
By Larry B. Stammer
Times Staff Writer
September 22, 2005
As the 40th anniversary nears for a landmark Vatican document that declared that Jews as a people were not responsible for the death of Jesus, American Roman Catholics and Jews are taking stock of how far the religions have come in healing nearly 2,000 years of enmity — and the challenges ahead.
"Nostra Aetate" (In Our Time), issued by the historic Second Vatican Council in October 1965, said not only that all Jews in the past and present could not be blamed for Jesus' crucifixion, but that they remained "most dear to God." The document deplores anti-Semitism and affirms that Jesus and most of his early followers were Jews. The pronouncement also paid respect to Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.
" 'Nostra Aetate' was a sea change in which both sides spoke to each other and with each other and modified their understandings based on those conversations. That's huge," said Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. "For the first time, the Catholic Church no longer has a theology of seeking to make Jews disappear."
Msgr. Royale Vadakin, a ranking Los Angeles priest who has been involved in interreligious exchanges, called "Nostra Aetate" an epic event. "Without it, we would still be locked in the descriptions of our relationships between Jews and Catholics as indifferent at best and hostile at worse," Vadakin said.
Commemorative events for the 40th anniversary are being held throughout the world, including a public one at 7:30 tonight at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. Among the scheduled speakers are Rabbi Michael A. Signer, a professor of Jewish thought and culture at the University of Notre Dame and director of its Holocaust Project; Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles; and Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, a member of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and moderator for Catholic-Jewish Relations at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Other upcoming events include a major interfaith conference starting Sunday in Rome, sponsored by the Pontifical Gregorian University, Georgetown University and other schools; and symposiums in Houston; St. Paul, Minn.; and other U.S. cities.
Such events are a sign of improved relations between Jews and Catholics, leaders say. Instead of pogroms of the past, popes and cardinals pay calls on synagogues, and rabbis join in interfaith services at Christian churches. Many Catholics see Jews as "elder brothers," following the example of the late Pope John Paul II.
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