Nostra Aetate - 'A ray of that truth which enlightens all people'

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On the forty-fifth anniversary of the promulgation of Nostra aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the Church and other faiths, Isabel Smyth SND examines the origins of the declaration, the enormous impact it had on inter-faith relations, and the questions it leaves us with today.

How the declaration came about

The 28th October will probably pass unnoticed by the majority of people and yet for the Catholic Church it is a significant date because, on 28th October 1965, Pope Paul VI promulgated the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, a document which was to transform the Church’s attitude towards other world religions and open it to inter-religious dialogue. It was one of the first documents to come to the floor of the Second Vatican Council but one of the last to be accepted because of the debate surrounding it.

When Pope John XXIII declared the Second Vatican Council and said that he wanted to open the windows of the Church so that the world could see in and the Church see out he did not have relations with other faiths in mind. But in 1960, John XXIII had a historic meeting with Rabbi Jules Isaac who presented the Pope with a book entitled ‘Contempt for the Jews’ which outlined the history of Christian anti-Semitism and appealed to him to remove anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic elements from Catholic liturgy.

To read more of Sr Isabel Smyth's reflection on Thinking Faith, please see:
www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20101027_1.htm