Nostra Ætate is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI. The title means "In our Time" in Latin and is from the first line of the declaration as is customary with Roman Catholic documents. (The full text in English of the declaration is available on the Holy See's website see here. For the original Latin, see here.) For a translation in English, [1].
Contents
- Introduction
- Hindus and Buddhists
- Muslims
- Jews
- Conclusion
Origins of the Document
Several events came together in the summer of 1960 and led up to Pope John XXIII's commissioning of Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity President Cardinal Augustin Bea to draft a declaration on the Church's relations with the Jews on September 18. (Stransky [p. 9] maintains that the pope did not directly order that a schema for the council itself be drafted). The first event was a petition by the Biblical Institute dated April 24, 1960 asking that the upcoming Council include the Jewish people and their relation to the Christian Church while considering ecumenical questions. The second event was the visit by the French Jewish scholar/historian Jules Isaac to Pope John XXIII on June 13. The third event was a request by Monsignor John Oesterreicher's Institute of Judeo-Christian Relations at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ, for an initiate similar to that requested by Biblical Institute's petition. Msgr. Oesterreicher saw all of this as a continuation of the work of popes Pius XI and Pius XII. (Oesterreicher 108-1190.
Summary
The Declaration begins by describing the unity of the origin of all people, and the fact that they all return to God; hence their final goal is also one. It describes the eternal questions which have dogged men since the beginning, and how the various religious traditions have tried to answer them. It mentions some of the answers that Hindus and Buddhists have suggested for such philosophical questions and then categorically states: "The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men."
Part three goes on to say that the Catholic Church regards the Muslims with esteem, and then continues by describing some of the things Islam has in common with Christianity and Catholicism: worship of One God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, Merciful and Omnipotent, Who has spoken to men; the Muslims' respect for Abraham and Mary, and the great respect they have for Jesus, whom they consider to be a Prophet and not God. The synod urged all Catholics and Muslims to forget the hostilities and differences of the past and to work together for mutual understanding and benefit.
Part four speaks of the bond that ties the people of the 'New Covenant' (Christians) to Abraham's stock (Jews). It states that even though some Jewish authorities and those who followed them called for Jesus' death, the blame for this cannot be laid at the door of all those Jews present at that time, nor can the Jews in our time be held as guilty, thus repudiating the charge of deicide; 'the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God'. The Declaration also decries all displays of antisemitism made at any time by anyone.
The fifth part states that all men are created in God's image, and that it is contrary to the teaching of the Church to discriminate against, show hatred towards or harass any person or people on the basis of colour, race, religion, way of life and so on.
Bibliography
Bea, Augustin, S.J. "The Church and the non-Christian Religions' The Month (Jan 1966), reprinted in The Way to Unity After the Council. Geoffery Chapman, 1967).
"The Drafting of Nostra Aetate" (http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/education/NA_draft_history.htm)
Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration 'Nostra Aetate (No. 4)http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19741201_nostra-aetate_en.html).
"In Our Time," The Forward, Oct. 28, 2005 (reprinted at http://www.jcrelations.net/en/?id=2578).
Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in the Teaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church, 1985 (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19820306_jews-judaism_en.html)
Oesterreicher, John M. The New Encounter between Christians and Jews (Philosophical Library, 1986), esp. pp. 103-295.
Stransky, Thomas. "The Genesis of Nostra Aetate," America Oct. 24, 2005 (Vol. 193, No. 2).
Willebrands, Johannes Cardinal. "Christians and Jews: A New Vision" in Vatican II Revisited, by those Who Were There (Winston Press, 1986), pp. 236.