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Publié le 30 Novembre 2015
Jewish leaders met with Pope Francis in Rome on the 50th anniversary of the Nostra Aetate
By Sam Sokol, published in the Jerusalem Post October 28, 2015
Later, Francis said, “Since Nostra Aetate, indifference and opposition have turned into cooperation and goodwill. Enemies and strangers became friends and brothers.”
The landmark document inaugurated historic changes in the Catholic Church’s relations with other faiths. Its 600-word section on Judaism – approximately one-third of the document – rejects the long leveled charge against the collective Jewish people that Jews are guilty of killing Christ.
“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,” that document read.
The Jewish leaders were part of a delegation of representatives of the World Jewish Congress in Rome, there for a meeting of its governing board.
The meeting focused on the situation of Jews around the world, as well as the current tensions in the Middle East, the refugee crisis in Europe and the Iranian threat.
In St. Peter’s Square, Francis effusively greeted a Jewish leader from his native Argentina.
“You’re still alive?” the pope greeted Julio Schlosser, head of the DAIA umbrella organization of Argentina’s Jewish community, giving him a hug.
Prior to the public audience, the pope received WJC president Ronald Lauder in a private audience and met with representatives of the American Jewish Committee.
The AJC issued a statement on Wednesday praising the document as having “transformed Catholic-Jewish relations.”
“AJC is proud of the singular role it played in advisement, research and creation of an environment facilitating the Nostra Aetate achievement,” said David Inlander, chairman of AJC’s Interreligious Affairs Commission.
Speaking to a mixed audience of Christians and Jews in June, Pope Francis said that over the past fifty years “we are able to see the rich fruits which it has brought about and to gratefully appraise Jewish-Catholic dialogue.”
“Our fragmented humanity, mistrust and pride have been overcome thanks to the Spirit of Almighty God, in such a way that trust and fraternity between us have continued to grow. We are strangers no more, but friends, and brothers and sisters. Even with our different perspectives, we confess one God, creator of the universe and Lord of history. And he, in his infinite goodness and wisdom, always blesses our commitment to dialogue.”
“Christians, all Christians, have Jewish roots,” the pope asserted. “The Christian confessions find their unity in Christ; Judaism finds its unity in the Torah. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the word of God made flesh in the world; for Jews the word of God is present above all in the Torah”... Read more.