The 40th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate
Sermon, December 16, 2005
Rabbi Bruce Kadden
This fall marked the 40th anniversary of the end
of the Second Vatican Council and the issuing of one of the most important
documents in the history of Jewish-Christian relations: Nostra Aetate.
Meaning “In Our Time,” this small, but significant document of Vatican II led to
a revolution in not only Catholic-Jewish relations, but in all relationships
between Christians and Jews. For it became the starting point and in many ways
the measuring stick against which all other statements about Judaism were
compared.
The Second Vatican Council created a revolution in the
Roman Catholic Church. It brought the church from the Middle Ages into the
modern world, changing worship from Latin to the vernacular, allowing the Priest
to face the congregation, rather than the altar, allowing Catholics to attend
other religious services, and in hundreds of other ways affecting the day-to-day
life of Catholics. With the convening of Vatican II in 1962, Pope John XXIII
unleashed a process whose reverberations are still being felt. Pope John died
before the Vatican II concluded in 1965, but his role in convening this historic
gathering assured his place as one of the most admired Pontiffs in history.
For most of Christian history, the Church’s attitude about
Judaism could be summarized by what Jules Isaac called “The Teaching of
Contempt.” Among its more significant and insidious charges were:
--that the dispersion of the Jews was a divine punishment for having crucified
Jesus;
--that the Judaism of Jesus’ day was degenerate and corrupt;
--and that the Jews were a deicide people.
These teachings were in great part responsible for
centuries of anti-Semitism, and for creating the environment of the Holocaust.
I am sure that those of you who remember the pre-Vatican II world, could cite
many examples of Church inspired anti-Semitism.
Recognizing the reality of almost 1900 years of history
helps us realize just how revolutionary were the changes introduced by Vatican
II, particularly in its section Nostra Aetate, In Our time, the
Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
This document replaced “the teaching of contempt” with an
appreciation for the “stock of Abraham” as Judaism is called. “The Church of
Christ acknowledges that in God’s plan of salvation the beginning of her faith
and election is to be found in the patriarchs, Moses and the prophets.”
Furthermore, with regard to the covenant between God and
Israel, the document states, “God does not take back the gifts he bestowed or
the choice he made.” The covenant between God and the Jewish people is still
valid; The Jews are still God’s chosen people.
Nostra Aetate also rejects the charge of deicide both
against “all Jews indiscriminately at that time” and “Jews today” and repudiates
calling Jews “rejected or accursed.” Finally, in the context of reproving all
forms of persecution, the document “deplores all hatreds, persecutions, displays
of anti-Semitism leveled at any time or from any source against the Jews.”
Rather, the Council encouraged “mutual understanding and appreciation” through
“biblical and theological enquiry and through friendly discussions.”
This document was quite controversial and faced significant
opposition in its development. While the opponents were successful in amending
early drafts, changing the wording of certain passages, they could not alter the
basic document which presented a fundamentally new attitude toward Judaism and
the Jewish people.
Nostra Aetate was only the beginning of a series of
Vatican documents with regard to Judaism. In 1974, the Vatican Commission for
Religious Relations with the Jews issued Guidelines and Suggestions for
Implementing Nostra Aetate. This document offered concrete ideas with
regard to interfaith dialogue, liturgy, teaching and education and joint social
action. For example, with regard to liturgy, the document says, “When
commenting on biblical texts, emphasis will be laid on the continuity of our
faith with that of the earlier Covenant.” Furthermore, the text states that
“care will be taken to see that homilies” did not distort the meaning of
liturgical readings.
In 1985, another document, Notes on the Correct Way to
Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic
Church, was issued. This was a long and detailed document, with sections
pertaining to:
--Religious Teachings and Judaism;
--Relations Between the Old and New Testament;
--Jewish Roots of Christianity;
--Jews in the New Testament;
--Liturgy;
--and Judaism and Christianity in History.
These follow-up documents, though less widely publicized
than Vatican II, are perhaps even more significant, because they clearly lay out
the way that Judaism should be presented to Catholics both in educational and
liturgical settings. And because of the structure of the Catholic Church, they
are widely disseminated in Catholic settings throughout the world. These
teachings have influenced not only the church leadership, but the educational
materials the Church has produced.
Furthermore, the many positive developments in
Jewish-Catholic relations that occurred under Pope John Paul II such as his
visit to the synagogue in Rome, the Vatican’s recognition of the state of
Israel, and the Church’s document on the Holocaust, would have been
inconceivable without the groundwork established by Nostra Aetate and the
subsequent documents.
Finally, let us recognize the profound influence that
Nostra Aetate has had, either directly or indirectly, on other forms of
Christianity. Virtually every major main-stream Protestant denomination has
followed the lead of the Catholic church in issuing statements of cooperation
and reconciliation with Judaism. The result has been a dramatic decrease in
anti-Semitism and an increasing in understanding of and appreciation for Judaism
among a vast majority of Americans.
While 40 years may seem like a long time to some of us, in
the life of the Catholic Church and of the Jewish people, it is a relatively
short period of time. There are still many who remember what the church was
like before Vatican II and what it was to be a Jew in a world in which
Catholicism and Christianity in general still reflected “the teaching of
contempt.”
By adopting Nostra Aetate, and following it up with
documents which both elucidated its implications and expanded its scope, the
Catholic Church has done its part to repudiate this teaching of contempt and
replace it with a teaching characterized by understanding, appreciation, and
love.
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