Nostra Aetate 60 years later

On October 28, 1965, the Vatican issued a document, under the name of Pope Paul VI, called Nostra Aetate.

That document, subtitled “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” revolutionized the Catholic church’s approach to Judaism, and to Jews.

Sixty years later, “This is a banner year for Catholic-Jewish relations,” Rabbi Noam Marans of Teaneck, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious affairs, said. Not only did it mark a radical change in at least the theoretical relationship between the church and Jews — Pope John Paul II called us Catholics’ “elder brothers,” although later that term became controversial — but “it coincides with a papal transition year,” Rabbi Marans said. “All of that has had an impact on Catholic-Jewish relations in particular, and on Christian-Jewish relations, and one could argue all interreligious relations, more broadly.”

Rabbi Marans and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, will talk about Nostra Aetate and its impact on the relationship between Catholics and Jews on December 3. (See below.)

“In all of these developments, one should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Rabbi Marans said. “Nostra Aetate is good, but it is not perfect. Catholic-Jewish relations are good, but they are not perfect. Perhaps they even are very good, given two millennia of context, which means nearly 2,000 years of anti-Jewish teachings within Christianity that was very dangerous for the Jewish people, and led to persecutions, pogroms, inquisitions, blood libels, and a foundation for antisemitism that saw its full evolution — no, its devolution — into Nazism and the Shoah.

“Whether or not one poses a direct link between Christian teaching and the Shoah, it is clear that Christian teaching was the foundation for the Western antisemitism that we are still battling until this day.”

Rabbi Marans acknowledges that “this day” is not the day we might have expected, say, a decade ago. “We certainly are living in a moment that we certainly never fully imagined we would once again be confronting, let alone here in America,” he said. “It is obvious that since 2017 and the Charlottesville rally, and the sad ongoing list of place names that we now have, places where tragedies have befallen the Jewish people, even in America, even when we are praying in our synagogues. It is a crisis, and we appropriately expect the Catholic church to be a leader in confronting antisemitism, both because of our history and because of the commitment in Nostra Aetate to combatting antisemitism in all its forms.

“Ultimately, it is about relationships. It is important to the Jewish people that we have relationships at the highest level of the Vatican — and we do. Because the pope is the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. He is possibly the most heard voice and the most visible figure in the world, influencing many beyond the 1.4 billion Catholics.

“So the visuals of the popes doing what they do today — things that they never have done in the past — makes a difference.

“The last three popes were also the first three popes ever to visit synagogues,” Rabbi Marans continued. “They went on state visits to the State of Israel, after diplomatic relations were established in the 1990s. And they went to Auschwitz, to express in different ways an understanding of the role of Christianity in that place.”

By the last three popes Rabbi Marans means John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Pope Leo XIV, who leads the Holy See today, was installed only in May, so “it’s too early, and the situation in Israel is too volatile,” for him to have had a chance to go there.

But Rabbi Marans is hopeful, and that hope is based on knowledge.

“The challenges in recent years have been regarding papal and Vatican statements about Israel that were concerning for Jewish leadership,” Rabbi Marans said. He was talking about comments, statements, and actions by Pope Francis; they included unveiling a Christmas creche that had baby Jesus swaddled in a kaffiyeh in 2024. “There were some severe judgments against Israel, expressions that sounded like moral equivalency between Israel’s defensive actions and Hamas’s brutal, horrific terrorism. That made it difficult for Jews to appreciate Pope Francis’s longstanding outspokenness against antisemitism.” That outspokenness was evident — and noted — during Francis’s time in his native Argentina.

“Even though Francis met with hostage families, and even met with wounded IDF veterans at the Vatican, our vulnerability was very high, and we wanted and needed more support,” Rabbi Marans said. The situation was complex and landmine-laden.

But now there is a new pope in Rome.

“Let’s not imagine that there are major policy differences between Pope Francis and Pope Leo regarding Israel, the conflict, et cetera,” Rabbi Marans said. “But there do seem to be stylistic differences. There is more careful language from Leo, and that bodes well for Catholic/Jewish relations, because language matters.

“Pope Leo has gone out of his way to acknowledge that there are challenges in Catholic/Jewish relations, and that he is committed to the spirit of dialogue in Nostra Aetate. He is committed to meeting the challenge head on.”

Rabbi Marans has met Pope Leo twice. “Once was on the day after his inauguration,” he said. “I gave him a copy of ‘Translate Hate,’” a booklet of antisemitism terms, each one defined and explained and contextualized, compiled by a partnership between the AJC’s interreligious affairs department and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

Rabbi Marans also gave Pope Leo a White Sox hat; Leo, the first American pope, is from Chicago’s South Side, and he’s a Sox fan.

Then Rabbi Marans met Leo again, “during Nostra Aetate at 60 events at the Vatican,” he said.

He also received a note from Leo, dated May 8. That was the day that he was elected pope. Leo “wrote a letter addressed to me in my role as AJC’s director of interreligious affairs.” That letter, and a few similar missives to other Jewish leaders, “was a message, written on the day of his election, to the Jewish people.”

After telling Rabbi Marans when he would be installed — May 18 — Leo wrote: “Trusting in the assistance of the Almighty, I pledge to continue to strengthen the church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate.”

“It was unprecedented,” Rabbi Marans understated.

“It bodes well for Catholic/Jewish relations in this country” to have an American pope, he continued. “This is the country that has been most successful in pursing and advancing Catholic/Jewish relations, and preparing Catholic seminarians for their roles. There are more Catholics and Jews living side by side here than in any other place in the world.

“There was a history of good relations between them as a forerunner of Nostra Aetate. And in the first half of the 20th century, anti-Catholicism and antisemitism both were problems in America.

“I love the letter that Peter Stuyvesant” — the Dutch bureaucrat who ran the colony then called New Netherland (now better known as New York) and was a notorious Jew-hater — “wrote to his bosses” at the Dutch West India Company in 1654. “He wrote that he didn’t want to let the Jews in, because if they let the Jews in, next they’d have to let the Papists in,” Rabbi Marans said. (After that, mixed dancing!)

Turning to his upcoming public talk with Cardinal Tobin, Rabbi Marans pointed out that the diocese of Newark, which includes Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Union counties — in other words, all of the Jewish federation world’s North Jersey catchment area, and most of MetroWest’s — is one of the most populous, and that it includes more Jews than almost any other.

“Cardinal Tobin has been a good friend of the Jewish people, and I am looking forward to being in conversation with him,” he said. He’s been in Newark since 2016. “I remember noting, in a long interview with him then, that he said something about the Holocaust and antisemitism, and his understanding that history shows where a dramatic rise in hate can lead us.

“We’ll talk about the personal impact Nostra Aetate had on him, and his evolution as a Catholic leader in the post-Nostra Aetate era. I would like to hear from him about how it has played itself out, both in the church and in Catholic/Jewish relations. I’d like to heard what he thinks of the state of those relations today, what we can do together to assure its continued vitality.

“Catholic/Jewish relations is a lot like the stock market. It has been on an upward trajectory for 60 years, but it has not been a straight line. There are regular crises, but both parties ultimately navigate each crisis because no one is willing to go back to the pre-Nostra Aetate era.”

“It is very important that the cardinal of Newark is engaging publicly with the Jewish people,” Rabbi Marans concluded.

Who: Rabbi Noam Marans and Cardinal Joseph Tobin

What: Talk about “Celebrating Catholic-Jewish Relations and Nostra Aetate 60 Years Later”

When: On Wednesday, December 3, at 7:30 p.m.

Where: In Bergen County; location provided after registration

How much: It’s free

How to register: Go to AJC.org/NewJersey/NostraAetate or email cohend@ajc.org.