'Nostra Aetate' continues to 'set a new course' for Catholic Church's relations with Jewish people

(OSV News) -- Hours after the Vatican's commemorations of the 60th anniversary of "Nostra Aetate" ("In Our Time") -- the Second Vatican Council's decree on the CatholicChurch's relations with other religions, in which the church formally denounced antisemitism -- OSV News spoke with Rabbi Noam Marans, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, about his participation in the celebrations -- and the increased relevance of "Nostra Aetate" amid a time of rising antisemitism.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

OSV News: What were your key takeaways from the Vatican's commemorations of the 60th anniversary of "Nostra Aetate"?

Rabbi Marans: First, it's a privilege and honor and responsibility to be here in Rome at the Vatican as Catholics and Jews and others celebrate the 60th anniversary of "Nostra Aetate." We participated, of course, in the official Vatican commemoration last night (Oct. 28), processed with diverse religious leaders, and had an opportunity to greet or be greeted by Pope Leo XIV.

I was a presenter and participant at the Pontifical Gregorian University's conference on "Nostra Aetate" at 60, and somewhat by coincidence, Sant'Egidio (a lay Catholiccommunity dedicated to fostering peace) had its annual peace conference, and I also presented there. And both Pope Leo and Cardinal Kurt Koch, who is the president of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, had major public pronouncements (on the topic).

Both of them emphasized the origin story of "Nostra Aetate," which is to set a new course for the Catholic Church and its relationship with the Jewish people -- beginning with rejecting the collective guilt of the Jewish people in the death of Jesus, but particularly, at this time, to reaffirm very publicly the church's commitment to oppose antisemitism with all the tools in its arsenal at a time of a crisis of resurgent antisemitism.

And Pope Leo spoke passionately and eloquently about that, and he understood that after multiple years of challenges in Catholic-Jewish relations, which have primarily been in differences of interpretation regarding Israel's necessary and justified response to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, and how to understand the war in Gaza, and to avoid moral equivalencies between Hamas and Israel.

Pope Leo has communicated in a variety of ways that he's aware of the challenge. As you know, he wrote to me and other Jewish leaders on the day of his election, reaffirming his personal commitment to continuing and strengthening the dialogue in the spirit of "Nostra Aetate." You're meeting with the religious world for the first time, you're meeting with the Jews for the first time, and he cut right to the chase. In addition to saying all the things that you expect him to say, he said, "I know there's a challenge, I know there's a problem." And that, of course, is the first step in a process.

I'm not under any illusion that there'll be dramatic differences in policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Holy See's perspective, but there may be some differences in style between Pope Leo and Pope Francis, and style is not unimportant in the long and sometimes tortured relationship of Catholic-Jewish relations, if you're measuring it in millennia.

OSV News: How is the Catholic Church doing in remembering its commitment to "Nostra Aetate"?

Rabbi Marans: There are many ways to communicate the new sanctity of the relationship. That, of course, creates a better environment of knowledge of how this came to be.

But today, we are obviously in the most challenging moment over a period of years for the Jewish people in multiple generations, since the Shoah (the preferred Hebrew term for the Holocaust, the systematic killing of 6 million European Jews by the Nazi regime), because of the murderous Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel, and its diverse citizens and diverse foreign workers of different nationalities and different faiths.Terrorism is an equal opportunity offender. Hate is an equal opportunity offender. It doesn't discriminate between victims.

And there was already a dramatic resurgence of antisemitism before Oct. 7, and then counterintuitively, immediately on Oct. 8, there was an even more dramatic rise in antisemitism, which makes absolutely no sense in the wake of Oct. 7.

So that brings us to the question of, "What can the Catholic Church do?" And this is what the Jewish people need right now: We need our friends to be arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder with every fiber, every bone and fiber in their body, using the Catholic megaphone, the papal megaphone, to be clear, unequivocal, that -- as Pope Francis liked to say -- a Christian can't be an antisemite. He didn't mean there are no Christians who are antisemites; he meant that it makes no sense, because the roots of Christianity are in Judaism.

Obviously, there were challenges in (relations with) the Jewish community during the waning years of Pope Francis related to the response by Israel to the Hamas attack. But few have used their megaphone more repeatedly and demonstrably than he did on antisemitism.

And that's why Pope Leo's statements in the last 24 hours (amid the "Nostra Aetate" 60th anniversary commemorations) are extremely important, because he took advantage of the "Nostra Aetate" at 60 opportunity to reaffirm the Catholic Church's commitment, very strongly.

It was heard by the Jewish leaders here, and it's being heard around the world by people like you and others who are reporting on it.

OSV News: In practical terms, how can the average Catholic in the pew take positive steps to better understand the relationship between Judaism and Christianity and to counter antisemitism?

Rabbi Marans: Several things. Catholics can know Jews and Judaism better. They can visit synagogues without an agenda and say, I'm a Catholic neighbor, I'm interested for a familial reason.

Number two, they can reach out when things happen and say, "We are with you."

Number three, they can participate in Catholic-Jewish dialogues that are found in every major metropolitan center, where Catholics and Jews live side by side.

And they can urge their priests to utilize the tools that are made available by the bishops conference to counter antisemitism.

And lastly, I would say that they can be the people who counter antisemitism when they see it in casual conversation, in predisposed assumptions and characterizations.

So there are plenty of things that a person of conscience can do, in the United States and beyond, to counter antisemitism and foster Catholic-Jewish relations.