Reflections on Nostra Aetate:
40 Years after Its Call for a New Era of Interreligious Dialogue

Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, close to the center of Rome, served as the venue where scholars from around the world gathered from September 25 to 28, 2005 to mark the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, and to reflect on the impact of this Vatican II document in the world today. On my way back to the United States last fall, I was able to stop in Rome to participate in this memorable event. Here are some of my impressions and reflections.

In the past 40 years since the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, an emphasis has been placed mostly on Section 4 of the document with the result that this document (always referred to by its Latin title meaning "In our times?") was used almost exclusively in the circles of Jewish-Christian scholarship and dialogue. The surprise at the Conference in Rome for me was the extent of the expansion of dialogue in pursuing the encounter with Islam and beyond especially with Buddhism and Hinduism.

It was clear that Nostra Aetate opened the gates of dialogue on many levels. Those of us attending Nostra Aetate Oggi (Nostra Aetate Today) International Conference, certainly experienced this. Of special importance for those of us with a focus and concern on Jewish-Christian relations were the statements made linking Jewish-Christian dialogue with other dialogues. Each morning the plenary session presented speakers who spoke of how they have come to a "new understanding of their own tradition through engagement with another tradition."

Here I would like to comment on the first plenary presentation featuring Fr. John T. Pawlikowski, OSM. Gathering into his lecture his own insights, as well as those of other leading theologians, he pointed out to us that when first presenting Christian self-understanding in the other interreligious dialogues, important changes in the Church's identity emerging from new biblical and theological insights into the Jewish-Christian relationship must be front and center. (This is especially true for dialogue with Islam, since it involves inter-covenantal thinking.) And second, Christianity's integral bonding with Judaism, emphasized so often by Pope John Paul II, must become central to the way the Church presents itself in these other dialogues. With theologian Peter Phan, Fr. Pawlikowski recognized the challenge of the 21st century, to show how this emerging theology of Christian-Jewish relationship has relevance beyond the North Atlantic region.

This challenge has some response in the subsequent Vatican documents (1974, 1985, 1993 and 1998) that implemented and added further direction to the original teaching of Nostra Aetate. In this regard, Fr. Pawlikowski referred to Johannes Baptist Metz and Cardinal Carlo Martini. He quoted a brief theological formulation of Metz: "Christians can form and sufficiently understand their identity only in the face of Jews." Fr. Pawlikowski explained that for Metz such a vision involves a definite reintegration of Jewish history and Jewish beliefs into Christian theological consciousness and statement. Jewish history is not merely Christian pre-history; rather it forms an integral, continuing part of ecclesial history. Cardinal Martini's words express a similar vision: "Without a sincere feeling for the Jewish world, and a direct experience of it, one cannot fully understand Christianity. Jesus is fully Jewish, the apostles are Jewish, and one cannot doubt their attachment to the tradition of their forefathers." Nostra Aetate, Fr. Pawlikowski further pointed out, built its revolutionary understanding of the Church's relationship with Jewish people on the notable chapters of Romans 9-11, where Paul still struggles to balance understanding of the newness he recognized in Jesus and his message with the continuity of the Jewish covenant.

This balancing was part of the experience of the Conference as we listened, discussed, conversed with the "other." There never seemed to be enough time to do this or to attend the many concurrent sessions?with topics ranging from "Theologies of Religious Pluralism" and "Muslims and Christians in Dialogue I, II, III," to "Interreligious Dialogue in Africa" and "Monastic Interreligious Dialogue."

At the end of the Conference without a doubt our thinking, our knowledge, our understanding had certainly been expanded. These words of Fr. Pawlikowski help to keep alive for me the memory and lesson of the Conference days: "As Catholics we will likely never come to a point where our Christological affirmations will lead us to a theology of religious pluralism that will be in total sync with the perspectives of Judaism or other world religions?. But in our globalized world in which interreligious understanding is not merely confined to the realm of theological ideas but impacts directly our life together in community, we can ill afford to shrink from the task."