The Archdiocese of San Francisco and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) will hold an interfaith dialogue later this month in observance of the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of the Vatican II declaration “Nostra Aetate,” which focuses “on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions.”
Rabbi Noam Marans, the AJC director of Interreligious Affairs, and Father Dennis McManus, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ consultant for Jewish Affairs, are the main speakers at the event, according to the archdiocese.
The dialogue about “Nostra Aetate” will be held in the evening of March 25 at the event center for the Cathedral of Saint Mary in San Francisco. Registration is required to attend.
The archdiocese stated that the event is co-sponsored by the San Francisco Interfaith Council.
“Nostra Aetate” was issued by Pope Saint Paul VI on Oct. 28 in 1965. The declaration, which focuses on Church relations with Jews, Muslims, and others, emphasizes the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews and unequivocally decries anti-Semitism. It also underscores that Christ, the Blessed Mother, the Apostles, and many of Christ’s disciples came from the Jewish people and that the Jews are beloved by God.
“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues,” the declaration states. “True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.”
“Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures,” the declaration continues. “All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.”
Interested readers can find the full text of the declaration here.