蜜芽传媒

Wednesday of this week will be the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most remarkable moments in interfaith relations in my lifetime, the Vatican document Nostra Aetate, which transformed the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and other religions, most notably with Judaism and Jews.

It was the result of the meeting of two remarkable men. One was the French- Jewish historian Jules Isaac, who survived the Holocaust, but lost his wife and daughter in Auschwitz. After the War he set himself to discover the roots of anti-Semitism, tracing it back to the early history of the Church. Isaac didn鈥檛 believe, nor should we, that the Holocaust, or anti-Semitism itself, were inspired by Christianity. Hitler鈥檚 hate had quite different roots, and anti-Semitism predates the birth of Christianity. But Isaac charted the tendency of early Christian texts to blame Jews collectively for the death of Jesus and to see Judaism as a failed relationship between God and humanity. He called this 鈥渢he teaching of contempt.鈥�

Isaac鈥檚 work was read by Pope John XXIII, a man of courage who, during the war, had saved thousands of Jewish lives. In June 1960 the two men met, and the Pope resolved to re-examine the Church鈥檚 attitude to other faiths, Judaism in particular. Thus began the process that led to Nostra Aetate, though John, who died in 1963, didn鈥檛 live to see its completion. It transformed relations between the two faiths, so that today, after centuries of estrangement and hostility, Jews and Catholics meet not as enemies but as cherished and respected friends: testimony that even in the face of religious difference, broken relationships can be mended and ancient wounds begin to heal.

Rarely has this been more important than now, when religiously-motivated violence is bringing chaos and destruction to great swathes of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Christians are suffering; so are Muslims; and so are Jews.

What we need now is a new and broader Nostra Aetate, bringing together all the great faiths in a covenant of mutual respect and responsibility. We need leaders from every religion publicly to declare that much of what鈥檚 being done today in the name of faith is in fact a desecration of faith and a violation of its most sacred principles.

It took the Holocaust to bring about Nostra Aetate. Let鈥檚 not wait for another crime against humanity and God to bring us to our senses. For though we are different, we are each in God鈥檚 image. We honour Him by honouring all humankind.

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