Of the sixteen documents produced by the Second Vatican Council, the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions is the briefest. Yet, it generated passionate discussions, both of a theological and political nature, and caused intense world-wide newspaper and media coverage. The document included statements on Catholic-Jewish relations, the condemnation of anti-Semitism, and endeavored to address anti-Jewish ideas in Christian history and the Church’s liturgy that helped give rise to Nazism. As the document developed, it was expanded to clarify ideas on the Church’s respect for the spiritual, moral, and cultural values of other religions—Hinduism, Buddhism and, by extension, other religious beliefs. Islam, however, came to dominate the discussions due to concerns that a statement on the Jews would be interpreted politically not religiously in the Middle East where there is no distinction between a person’s politics and religion.
Since its promulgation on 25 October 1965, Nostra Aetate continues to evolve as a result of geopolitical conflicts and current events that make it even more relevant today. The emergence of ethno-nationalist leaders and anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe mirrors the resurgence of white supremacists in the United States. Anti-Semitism is augmented by the rise of Islamophobia and the actions of government officials who have sought to ban Muslims from entering the United States.1 These trends serve to highlight the need to reiterate the goals stated in Nostra Aetate, namely, “In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, [the Catholic Church] considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.”
Today, interreligious relations with Islam are even more crucial and complicated. Islam spans a vast geographical area extending from Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Islam has grown closer to Christianity not only because of theological dialogue and shared social and economic concerns, but also geographically. Conflicts and struggles remain. The distrust and misunderstanding among religions first referred to in Nostra Aetate have not been dispelled. Fears of “radical Islam” that melds suspicions about government infiltration with fears of “Sharia Law,” the legal code of Islam, are taking hold in the United States.
In the Middle East, where religion also identifies a person’s community, the estimated ten to eleven million Arab Christians suffer various forms of marginalization. The threat to equality of citizenship for Christians remains, causing some Arab Christians to regard sectarianism and the continued rule of authoritarian regimes as protections against militant Islamists. The development of Nostra Aetate however, points to a more positive path as a foundation for Muslims and Christians, namely, to “prudently and lovingly, through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, and in witness of Christian faith and life, acknowledge, preserve and promote the spiritual growth with joy the religious values we have in common.”
Nostra Aetate’s exhortation to dialogue and collaboration is reflected in a statement the Jesuits of Syria released on 3 June 2011 as the Syrian Civil War started to unfold. As this tragic conflict persists, the statement’s relevance continues today.
It is not possible for us to mention all the causes of the present crisis, but we ask ourselves how to go beyond this dolorous situation and arrive at a sincere tentative dialogue between all the parties. This dialogue is not an easy matter for it presupposes trust on one side towards the other and listening to what the other has to say. We should also seriously consider the ideas of the other side even if these ideas differ from ours.
There is no true dialogue without previously acknowledging that ‘no one has the full truth’. This means that the essential aim of a dialogue is the common search for what comes closest to the truth; the common search supposes that all parties, with no one excluded, are invited to participate. Such a dialogue makes it necessary for everyone to be sufficiently self-conscious so as not to be driven astray by different channels of tendentious information. The Christian adult frees herself or himself from negative preconceived ideas; she or he tries by the dialogue, by the humility of dialoguing and listening, to acknowledge the objective data in order to build a bridge between the antagonistic currents existing within the society. The Christian adult is an efficient actor in the construction of modern public opinion, an essential condition for a successful reform.2
This volume explores how Nostra Aetate can influence interreligious dialogue and understanding in the modern world. Although influential in religious, scholarly, and academic circles, Nostra Aetate is relatively unknown outside these disciplines. The essays in the volume seek to remedy that deficit by stressing the declaration’s difficult historical and social context and the evolution of the Church’s relationship with non-Christian peoples. Contentious issues are discussed such as the insistence by some of the link between the Jewish people to the land and state of Israel, an issue that confronts a Catholic understanding of the relativity of national borders and identity. Other chapters confront the challenges associated with the Church’s relationship with Islam. Nostra Aetate is silent about the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an and is cautious regarding Islam’s Abrahamic credentials, which Muslims would like to see addressed. Another is proselytizing missionary activity that concerns both Jews and Muslims. For some Jews, “The most blatant, and hence most offensive, expression of Christian religious exclusivity is Christian mission. (…) Suspicion of a hidden missionary agenda is probably still the greatest impediment to advancement in Jewish-Christian dialogue.”3 For some Muslims the concern is that Nostra Aetate pointed to the continuation of aggressive Catholic missionary activity in several Islamic countries. According the Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “In discussing the difficulties in dialogue, it is not possible not to mention missionary activity as it is intertwined with medicine, technology and education.”4 Nevertheless, without dismissing these concerns, Nostra Aetate’s silence on these issues can be interpreted optimistically. Giving the document’s ongoing influence and development these issues are left open for later discussion.
Significantly, Nostra Aetate’s stress on the need for the Catholic Church to be aware of other religions in order to understand itself more deeply, has enabled the Church’s present and future engagement with the followers of other faiths. Relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, has been enriched by the Nostra Aetate declaration, as well as by the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism and the Declaration on Religious Freedom. The declaration also had a formative influence on the theologies of various Protestant groups toward non-Christian religions, while the process of its development during the Council’s discussions brought to life the role of Arabic speaking Christian theologians from early Islamic times onward who responded to the religious challenges of Islam in Islam’s own Arabic idiom.
The Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Ahmad el-Tayeb, in Abu Dhabi on 4 February 2019, reflects the continuing promise and progress of interreligious dialogue.5 The declaration called on the leaders of the world “to work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace; to intervene at the earliest opportunity to stop the shedding of innocent blood and bring an end to wars, conflicts, environmental decay and the moral and cultural decline that the world is presently experiencing.” The joint declaration is a striking example of the progress that has been achieved since Nostra Aetate first articulated the Church’s relationship to other religions and called for all “to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.”
Notes
- 1.Scott Shane, Matthew Rosenberg, Eric Lipton, “Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of U.S. Policy-Making,” The New York Times, 2 February 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/us/politics/donald-trump-islam.html; and Jason Horowitz, “Steve Bannon Carries Battles to Another Influential Hub: The Vatican,” The New York Times, 7 February 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/europe/vatican-steve-bannon-pope-francis.html.
- 2.Zenit, “Statement of the Jesuits in Syria,” 7 June 2011. https://zenit.org/articles/statement-of-jesuits-in-syria/.
- 3.A Goshen-Gottstein, “Jewish-Christian Relations: From Historical Past to Theological Future,” reprinted on website Jewish-Christian Relations. http://www.jcrelations.net/en/?item=1754.
- 4.Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. “Muslim Dialogue with the Church After Nostra Aetate.” Nostra Aetate, edited by Pim Valkenberg and Anthony Cirelli, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC, 2016, pp. 103–115. JSTOR. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g69zbs.15. Accessed 15 April 2020.
- 5.“Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together: Joint Statement Signed by Pope Francis of the Catholic Church and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, on 4 February 2019.” http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/travels/2019/outside/documents/papa-francesco_20190204_documento-fratellanza-umana.html.