2 november, 2025
(I wanted to write up a paragraph or two to post on our DIMMID website but I wound up writing six pages! The old saying comes to mind, "If I had had more time I would have written less." Here is my reportage on the events in Rome around the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Church's declaration concerning Non-Christian religions, of Vatican II.)
After Hong Kong I returned to Rome with enough time to recuperate and ready myself for the very intense week that just ended. This past week we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, the landmark groundbreaking (how many adjectives could we use?) Vatican II declaration on the Church’s relations with non-Christian religions, in various ways and locations. The main event for me was the conference held at the Gregorianum, “Re-Thinking Nostra Aetate,” headed up by Professor Ambrogio Bongiovanni, for which DIMMID was a happy co-sponsor. That covered most of Monday through Wednesday. All our sessions were held in the Aula Magna at “the Greg.” Prof. Bongiovanni seemed to be concerned that not enough people would come, but the hall was about three-quarters full most of the time. It was a highly academic affair as befits the setting, and most of the talks given will appear in a book later.
The days were packed with information! There were several opening greetings and introductions, the strongest one given by Prof. Elias El Halabi from the World Council of Churches, who has a very global view. He ended up by saying that in our time religion is being faced with so many struggles, but that he thought the worst were actually intra-religious not inter––ethnocentrism, political exclusivity and superiority which are using religion as a disguise for ultranationalism. He said specifically at one point that “the enemy of religion is from within.”
The inaugural lectures the first day were dedicated to history, an excellent presentation by Paolo Trianni followed up by a “theological understanding offered by Jesuit Fr. Imperatori who, unfortunately, sparked off a little firestorm. He decided to add in some criticism about the State of Israel that included comparing Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Shoah, something about false messianism, his interpretation of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, and even a mention of something being “satanic.” There were several rabbis there besides other Jewish attendees, and some of the rabbis were actually from Jerusalem. They did not hesitate to express their consternation. One suggested that we had just set back Catholic Jewish relations decades, particularly with the mention of “satanic,” since that was one of the old descriptors used for Jews and Judaism in the past. One rabbi pointed out that Fr. Imperatori’s was also a Christological interpretation of the Suffering Servant which Jewish scholars do not agree with. It was not a good way to begin, and many of us all left the hall for lunch feeling very tense.
The afternoon was given to the dharmic religions. (I might have preferred to separate Hinduism from Buddhism and let each of them stand on their own instead of getting put together.) Another smaller fire was lit when the last speaker that day, who is listed as a professor of Sanskrit and Asian and North African Studies, kept referring to “so-called Hinduism” and “neo-Hinduism.” This did not go over well with one of the Hindu scholars who was in the room who referred to it as a “typical colonialist misunderstanding of Hinduism” and further took exception to the fact that the professor had made an egregious error with one of the Sanskrit terms (using the masculine instead of the feminine form of the word). I ended the day thinking, “If these kinds of skirmishes and serious misunderstandings can break out in a room full of religious scholars who we can assume to be people of good will, is it any wonder that conflicts break out among people who do have the benefit of education in this field and who we cannot always assume are of good will?” On a positive note, Swami Sarvapriyananda, with whom I got to spend some time later, gave a delightful presentation based on five parables of Vivekananda; and Venerable Yon Seng Yeath, a Theravadan monk from Cambodia delivered a very nice paper in praise of Nostra Aetate, which he obviously knew well, as a model for interreligious dialogue for other traditions. This is a theme that came up often. I was thinking how the Roman Lectionary after the Council also became the standard for the mainline Christian denominations as well, after centuries of the Catholic Church lagging far behind in both areas, scripture, and dialogue.
There was a question-and-answer period at the end of each long section, and I was to be the moderator of the one on Tuesday, so I was watching carefully as to what kind of questions got raised and how they were dealt with after the issues that first day.
The second day went much better––and I was happy to see that the rabbis did not abandon ship! We spent the morning hearing about the traditions that Nostra Aetate did not deal with––Sikhism, Jainism, African traditional religions, Taoism, and then “new movements.” These presentations were for the most part pretty well timed and did not feel rushed. I was particularly happy to hear about Taoism as I have been reading so much about that tradition these last months and years. The afternoon was given totally to Islam, six different speakers. That session did feel a little rushed. And then I was the moderator for the Q&A period at the end of that session. My time was cut short as well because we were all going to the Vatican for an event that evening and Ambrogio said we had to be in the car by 5 PM. I ended it even a little earlier than Ambrogio wanted me to––people were pretty exhausted by then anyway––so that I could read a section of Stephen Mitchell’s version of Tao te Ching, which I have in Italian. (We were conducting the sessions in both languages, so I was happy to be able to read it in both.) I am glad I did because immediately the presenter to my left asked to take a photo of it, and then two people stopped me on the way out the door and asked for the reference. I really felt the need to “put your mind in your heart” by that point in the day. I made it a point to say it was a poem from Stephen Mitchell’s version of the Tao te Ching and not a “translation” to avoid any scholarly pushback since I my guess is that there’s a good chance it is nowhere near what the original Chinese says, though it still makes a nice poem.
I have only three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These are your three greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with friends and with enemies,
you are in accord with the way things go.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile with all the beings in the world.
It’s the second half of #67, in case you’re wondering. But mind you, that is my translation back into English of somebody’s Italian translation of Mitchell’s English translation of the Chinese, if his version is actually a translation at all! That’s why I say, “a nice poem.”
That evening there was the big event in honor of Nostra Aetate’s 60th anniversary at Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican organized by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. The hall was about half full and we were treated to a grand multicultural event that featured dancers from Sri Lanka and Indonesia, a guitar-violin-bass trio that played Jewish music from Yemen, three pop singers from India, and several pieces by a local children’s choir, such as John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Michael Jackson’s “We Are the World.” In front of the barriers were representatives of the world’s religions and right behind the barriers were other VIPs, cardinals and bishops and some political leaders, though not many. We had seats right behind them, thanks to the Dicastery. Of course, the highlight of the evening was Pope Leo coming in at the very end. He gave a short speech and took pictures with the children’s choir before greeting each one of the representatives. I would have liked for the event (and the music) to be a little more interreligious than intercultural, since that is my area of expertise, but I understand their caution. There was already a chorus of conservative Catholic voices berating the entire enterprise.
It had gotten brought up many times how Nostra Aetate, got started because of a meeting between a French Jewish scholar and Pope John XXIII. There is a long fascinating history. If I may summarize: There was supposed to be a document on ecumenism (relations with other Christian traditions) that was going to include a section on relations with the Jews. But when it was learned that the council was going to be convened, Jules Isaac was commissioned by the French president to have an audience with Pope John XXIII specifically to request that the Church take up certain anti-Semitic teachings that were prevalent in Catholic preaching. Remember this is not even 20 years after the Holocaust. It was after his meeting with Jules Isaac that John XXIII decided that there needed to be a separate document concerning relations with the Jews.
But there were three major problems with that, and this historical context is very important. First of all, some of the more conservative bishops from Latin America, Italy and Spain thought that the whole idea was simply against Church teaching and tradition. Secondly, the State of Israel had only been officially founded in 1947. When the Arab governments learned that there was a portfolio on “the Jewish question,” their diplomats rushed to the Vatican to find out what was going on. Many Arab countries have a large Christian/Catholic population, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, not to mention Palestine itself, but they were a minority in their countries, and the bishops thought that if they didn’t protest this document on the Jews, they would never have been able to return home and face their people. Arab governments still considered themselves at war with Israel so many of the bishops from Eastern Catholic churches in the Mideast thought they had to protest against anything that appeared to be special treatment of the Jews. On the other hand, the African bishops thought that it was not enough to only deal with Judaism, and so they wanted to include the other two-thirds of the world’s religious people who were not Christians or Jews, including, obviously, Islam. They were backed up by the folks from the churches in Asia who wanted Hinduism and Buddhism included as well. This was a watershed moment here in another way: Roman Catholic tradition is breaking out of its Eurocentric container and really becoming a world church.
This was what Venerable Yon Seng Yeath had said earlier in the week.
Nostra Aetate was not merely a statement of tolerance; it is an act of courageous spiritual curiosity and theological generosity. It acknowledges that within other religious traditions, there are “seeds of the Word,” “rays of truth,” and wisdom that merit reverence and respect.
The last day everyone was invited to the General Audience in St. Peter’s Square in the morning. At that General Audience the Holy Father dedicated to interreligious dialogue and specifically addressed the issue of anti-semitism.
In particular, it should not be forgotten that the first focus of Nostra Aetate was towards the Jewish world, with which Saint John XXIII intended to re-establish the original relationship. For the first time in the history of the Church, a doctrinal treatise on the Jewish roots of Christianity was to take shape, which on a biblical and theological level would represent a point of no return. A “bond … spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock. Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God’s saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets”. In this way, the Church, “mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone”. Since then, all my predecessors have condemned anti-Semitism with clear words. And so I too confirm that the Church does not tolerate anti-Semitism and fights against it, on the basis of the Gospel itself.
The final conferences that afternoon were dedicated to Judaism, offered by both Jewish and Catholic scholars and they were excellent. And among the closing remarks was a very strong statement by Fr. Pino Di Luccio, SJ, the President of the Collegium Maximum at the Gregorianum, who, while acknowledging and thanking everyone involved, also added a very strong statement, circling back to the first day, that those who link the aftermath of the Hamas attack of October 2023 to the Shoah are over-stepping their bounds. And certainly, any mention of the Satanic or false messianism is to be rejected.
Anyway, these closing talks were among the best of the week. One last thought: one of the last speakers (I do not remember which) made a very strong statement, that does not strike me as always being true: “Dialogue is not about finding common ground: common ground is the starting point.” If that is true, then it seems to me that at times we have not yet even begun.
There was one other powerful meeting awaiting me that week. The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue is preparing a new document on “the Christian Spirituality of Interreligious Dialogue.” Both my predecessor, Fr. William Skudlarek, and I have been consulted on it this past year. I was invited by the DID to be a part of a meeting to discuss its final draft. Aside from a few meetings at their office on Via Conciliazione, this was my first official meeting with the Dicastery. They had brought in the drafting team of the document, who had for the most part met only online, and then several of us from around Rome. The drafters were from the USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Zimbabwe, and they all seemed to have flown in just for that meeting. In addition to the six of us from Rome, there was Cardinal Koovakad, the prefect, Monsignor Indunil the secretary, Fr. Markus who is the main person in charge of this process, and Bishop Curbeliè of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. But even some of us “Romans” were from India, Hong Kong, and the USA. It was really a stimulating meeting and a scintillating conversation, much more than I was expecting. For the most part, of course, we were all people deeply involved in teaching interreligious dialogue and/or steeped in the work itself.
We had basically two and a half hours to discuss a 30-page document. Fr. Markus wanted to keep us on task and started with the first five pages. I had a question about something that was in a footnote on the first page, which also referred to an expression used throughout the document. Apparently, it was a good question because we spent the better part of the next hour discussing only that point. I got roundly but good-naturedly teased about that, wondering if we would ever get through the rest of the document in the remaining hour and a half. We did, but Fr. Markus really had to keep us on task. It was exciting to be in a room with minds like that, to hear views from different parts of the world as well as from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which obviously has its own perspective on theological accuracy. We ended with a celebratory lunch––and some work back on the desks of the main drafters.
Thus ends my report of this first season of the year––and we are only in November! Let’s pray together, “In a world torn by conflict and division, we know it is you, O Lord, who turn our minds to thoughts of peace. May this work we do in your name redound to your glory.”
