More than forty years have passed since the promulgation ofNostra Aetateand thirty years since the creation of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. I am convinced that I do not exaggerate when I say that these events mark one of the most surprising developments of the twentieth century, which changed to a great extent the two-thousand-year history of Jewish-Christian relations, with momentous consequences for the whole world.

The urgency of better Jewish-Christian relations is even greater in these times of tragic and bloody conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, a conflict that...

The recent work of the delegations of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s Commission for Relations with the Catholic Church is one of the most significant signs of the progress made in Jewish-Christian dialogue. This is not only because of the presence of official representatives on the part of an Israeli governmental entity, but also and especially because of the involvement of part of the Orthodox rabbinic world at a level that would have been inconceivable even a few years ago; from the Jewish point of view, this is probably...

would like to preface my considerations with a general observation that is also meant to be an expression of hope for the future. Jewish-Christian dialogue—despite the limits, the flaws, the disappointments, the criticisms, and the attacks that it continues to provoke—is a dynamic reality; we are not in a situation of stasis. I would also like to quote, applying it to us, a verse from the Book of Deuteronomy (5:3), “We, all of us who are alive here this day,” are armed more with goodwill and hope than with wisdom and certainties. The comparison between Christianity and Judaism...

Bruno Forte has outlined the fundamental elements of a Christian theology of Judaism that provide a positive reading of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity.¹ Such a theology must not succumb to extremist temptations, either of an exclusivist nature (according to which Christianity has nothing to do with Judaism and should simply forgo any connection with the First Testament) or of an inclusivist bent (by which Christianity implies that God’s plan favoring the people of Israel has been replaced with another plan of salvation that does not consider Israel).

The wealth of data from Bruno Forte’s paper shows that the...

The history of the relations between Jews and Christians in the long centuries that precededNostra Aetateis a history that begins with the rise of Christianity and stretches over a period of almost two thousand years. In the impossibility of tracing even a rough sketch of this history, I will merely show a few of its aspects and then concentrate chiefly on what happened after the eighteenth century. The latter period marked the beginning of the gradual secularization of society, while the relationship between the Jews and the Church entered a profound crisis that would not be healed until...

I do not believe that it is an exaggeration to claim that the Shoah, or Holocaust, inasmuch as it represents the climax of a long history of discrimination and persecution against the Jewish people in the West, constitutes the most painful issue and the most unsettling problem among those Jews and those Christians who are involved in a serious and sincere interreligious dialogue. This pain, however, which flows from a historically enlightened memory, and the anxiety that emerges in any ethically formed conscience, are already an integral part of the commitment to dialogue. In other words, they are already constitutive...

A certain biblical passage, reread from the point of view of the Church Fathers, can help to introduce the question that concerns us: What relationship does Christian faith see between Israel and the Church? The question is indeed quite complex and could be addressed in a variety of ways: What is the reason for the significance and the continued relevance of Israel for the Church? Ought one to think of an economy of salvation based on a single covenant within which they both move, or is the covenant characterized by a plurality, and so the sense of the election and...

At least in the realm of Catholic and Protestant theology, an ecumenical consensus has been reached on various fundamental principles of a possible Christian understanding of Judaism.¹ These fundamental propositions can be summarized as follows.

A. At no point in time did God revoke his covenant with Israel. Israel is and remains the chosen people of God, even if it does not accept Jesus as its own Messiah. This “no” to Jesus as Christ on the part of Israel can be understood and also respected by the Christians as indicative of the faithfulness of the Jews to their biblical tradition....

The struggle of the Secretariat for Christian Unity under Cardinal Bea to promulgate the declarationDe Judaeis, the successful climax of which was the publication of the conciliar documentNostra Aetate, has produced extremely rich fruits. The brief and yet balanced pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council not only had a vast positive resonance and were often referenced by a variety of exegetical and theological publications, but they also opened the way to a lively dialogue between the Church and Judaism.¹ The popes themselves, especially Pope John Paul II, the Roman dicasteries, the episcopal conferences, and also individual bishops have...

What follows is a quick presentation of the preconciliar work that led to the declarationNostra Aetate. This presentation is almost always indebted to the main existing historiographical literature: from the memories of John M. Oesterreicher,¹ to the theological reflection of Eugene Fisher,² and to the historical work of Giovanni Miccoli and Mauro Velati in theHistory of Vatican IIedited by Giuseppe Alberigo. I invite you to consult these texts for references that this essay does not mention.³ Today we are aware of the extent to which all these reconstructions, or at least some parts of them, are largely...

The Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews was established by Paul VI on October 22, 1974.¹ One ought to remember that the creation of the Commission is in a certain sense both a point of arrival and also a starting point. It seems to me, therefore, that the present essay could be divided into three parts: (1) the precedents of the Commission and its beginning; (2) its configuration in the context of the Roman Curia; (3) and the chief moments of its work between its creation and the end of my period as its secretary, thus between 1974 and...

When, on October 22, 1974, Pope Paul VI established the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (CRRJ), a so-called International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC)¹ had already been in place for four years, having been instituted in Rome on December 23, 1970. This committee, which initially included five delegates from each side, would continue its activity without interruption over the following years, holding to date nineteen ordinary plenary sessions and two extraordinary ones. These initiatives have normally been coordinated by a joint executive committee, and the number of ILC members has progressively grown, so that now it includes...

The official dialogue recently established between the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel is one of the latest developments in the relationship between Jews and Christians.¹ In the following article, the creation, organization, implementation, and significance of this dialogue will be discussed. Its individual meetings will be considered on the basis of the resulting joint declarations. There will also be comments on the process of the composition of these declarations in order to illustrate the underlying themes of the discussions. Written in the form of a report, this article provides the...

It is not easy to discuss the subject of the relationship between Israel and the Vatican. On the one hand, of course, it is an international, diplomatic relationship. On the other hand, the two parties are unique; the relationship between the two cannot be compared, for instance, to the relationship between France and Spain. We are talking of the Holy See, which is the expression of the highest authority of the Catholic Church (a religious reality). We are also talking of the State of Israel, a state that at the international level is a state like any other, but which...

It is impossible to try to explain in a short time such a complex issue as the one concerning the relations between Israel and the Holy See. In this regard, I would like to tell an anecdote. An Israeli meets an American friend in Jerusalem, and in typical Israeli style—maybe acting a little too forward—he asks the American when did he arrive, when will he leave, and the reason for his visit. The American replies that he had arrived the day before, would leave the day after, and came to write a book about Israel. The Israeli wonders...