Catholic, Jewish and Muslim leaders remember Nostra Aetate

BY DAVID V BARRETT
CATHOLIC, JEWISH and Muslim leaders in England united to celebrate a Vatican document that distanced the Church from anti-Semitism.
On the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and the president of the Council of Mosques Dr Zaki Badawi hailed the Second Vatican Council document as a landmark declaration in peace ful relations between the faiths.
In a letter to the Times last Friday, they said the document “pledged the Catholic Church to the effort to replace suspicion and hostility among all Churches and religions with an attitude of dialogue and collaboration”.
The three leaders said that “a spirit of mutual tolerance and respect between our faiths is today possible both in principle and in practice”.
Nostra Aetate precipitated a shift in Catholic-Jewish rela tions, said the three leaders, by acknowledging the Christian contribution to anti-Semitism and making clear that God’s covenant with the Jewish people has never been broken.
But a major inter-faith conference in Rome last week also marking the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate was marred by the refusal of Rome’s Chief Rabbi to attend. Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni boycotted the event because of the presence of Cardinal JeanMarie Lustiger of Paris, who converted from Judaism.
Pope Benedict XVI in a message read out to the conference said that the Catholic Church was irrevocably committed to dialogue with the Jews and that it would never forget the Holocaust. He praised those who had worked courageously to foster reconciliation and better understanding between Christians and Jews “despite a complex and often painful history”.
The commemoration of Nostra Aetate focused on the progress in inter-faith relations rather than past conflicts between the faiths.
“In laying the foundations for a renewed relationship between the Jewish people and the Church, Nostra Aetate stressed the need to overcome past prejudices, misunderstandings, indifference, and the language of contempt and hostility,” the Pope said. “The Jewish-Christian dialogue must continue to enrich and deepen the bonds of friendship which have developed.” In August Pope Benedict followed John Paul II’s example by visiting a synagogue.
Last Friday the Vatican joined world leaders in strongly condemning the call by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran “to wipe Israel off the map”.
“The Holy See reaffirms the right, for both Israelis and Palestinians, to live in peace and security, each in their own sovereign state,” said the statement from Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. The Vatican also condemned the renewed violence in the Holy Land, including a bombing that killed five Israelis in the city of Hadera and Israel’s retaliatory air strike in Gaza which killed eight Palestinians.
“The serious incidents in recent days in the Holy Land very much worry the Holy See which, joining the entire international community, expresses its firm condemnation of the acts of violence,” the Vatican said.