Every religion has its demonology. When Malcolm X made this observation to Alex Haley as they collaborated on what was to become his posthumous autobiography, his immediate target was the antisemitic teaching promoted by Elijah Muhammed, from whose sect he had recently broken. His refusal to exempt any faith from the tendency to demonize others in order to validate itself remains as painfully relevant today as it was in 1965.
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Interreligious dialogue is key to preventing “the extremism that, sadly, is a pathology that can appear also in religions,” Pope Francis said in a message to members of a Jewish group engaged in dialogue for more than 50 years.

The pope had been scheduled to meet June 30 with members of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, but the Vatican press office said “a recurrence of knee pain” prevented him from doing so.

Instead, the pope gave the group his prepared remarks.

“Interreligious dialogue is a sign of our times and, I would say, a providential sign, in the sense that God himself, in his wise plan, has inspired, in religious leaders and in many others, the desire to encounter and come to know one another in a way respectful of religious differences,” the pope wrote to the group.

Dialogue, he said, “is a privileged path to the growth of fraternity and peace in our world.”
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Immigration and minorities were chief topics of discussion at a meeting of the Anglican-Jewish Commission last month in Jerusalem. One particular focus was the situation facing Christians in the Middle East. They agreed that any responses to the situation must be grounded in an understanding and affirmation of human life and freedom.

This was the first time the group had met since 2014. Speaking afterwards members said they had been encouraged and hopeful about gathering more often in the future. The Commission expects to reconvene again in 2019.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Programmes Coordinator for Inter Religious Affairs, Katie Hodkinson, said the meeting was very significant.

“It was something that the Archbishop of Canterbury agreed with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel whilst on his two-week visit to the Holy Land last May, ” she said. “This renewed energy and commitment was warmly welcomed by both the Christian and Jewish communities.”
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One of Canada’s most influential and controversial theologians, among the few remaining living links to the Second Vatican Council, has died.

Gregory Baum, author of the first draft of Nostra Aetate, was 94 years old.

Baum was admitted to St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal Oct. 8. “I’m disappearing inside,” he told a friend. He decided not to continue the dialysis treatment which had kept him alive the last four years.

As a young theologian, Baum shot to prominence in the early days of the Second Vatican Council, mentored by Cardinal Augustin Bea. A key ally of Pope St. John XXIII, Bea looked for credible Catholic experts on Catholic-Jewish relations and found his man in Baum.
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For the first time since the Second Vatican Council changed Christian teachings toward Judaism and the Jewish people 50 years ago, a group of Orthodox rabbis have issued a public statement advocating partnership with Christians and appreciating the religious value of Christianity.

Published on December 3rd on the website of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC) in Israel, “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians” is signed by over 25 prominent Orthodox rabbis in Israel, United States and Europe and calls for cooperation between Jews and Christians to address the moral and religious challenges of our times. The proclamation’s authors are inviting fellow Orthodox rabbis to join in signing the statement.

“The real importance of this Orthodox statement is that it calls for fraternal partnership between Jewish and Christian religious leaders, while also acknowledging the positive theological status of the Christian faith. Jews and Christians must be in the forefront of teaching basic moral values to the world,” said Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, one of the statement’s initiators, and founder of CJCUC, member of the Israeli Rabbinate and the Chief Rabbi of Efrat. While not a direct response to the Church’s 1965 “Nostra Aetate,” “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven” was clearly influenced by Christianity’s new affirmation of the eternity of the Jewish covenant and the respect that Christian leaders have demonstrated toward Judaism and Jews in contemporary dialogues and religious encounters.

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Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should work with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said on Thursday in a major document drawing the Church further away from the strained relations of the past. It was the latest move on a host of issues, such as gay rights and re-marriage, that the Vatican or Pope Francis have made showing a desire to be more compassionate and open and to move further away from entrenched traditions. In the past, for example, Catholic prayers have denounced Jews for not believing in Jesus. Jews have also accused the World War Two papacy of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust, a charge the Vatican denies. The new document from the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews stressed recent Vatican teachings that the two religions were intertwined and that God had never annulled his covenant with the Jewish people. “The Church is therefore obliged to view evangelization (spreading Christianity) to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views,” it said. It also said Catholics should be particularly sensitive about the significance to Jews of the Shoah, the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, and pledged “to do all that is possible with our Jewish friends to repel anti-Semitic tendencies”. “A Christian can never be an anti-Semite, especially because of the Jewish roots of Christianity,” it said.
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Today, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) and the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus (CRC) convened the first national, bilateral dialogue between Catholics and Jews in Canada.

The organizations launched this initiative as part of a joint celebration of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Declaration issued by the Second Vatican Council which rejected antisemitism and underscored the importance of the Jewish roots of Christianity. The first dialogue session involved a combination of clergy and scholars, with six-person delegations from each faith community. Themes addressed included the substantial role of Nostra Aetate in transforming Catholic perceptions of the Jewish community, the deep significance of the State of Israel to the Jewish people, and the importance of acknowledging painful history while embracing mutual respect and working together to build a common future.
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Continuing to strengthen relationships with the Jewish community is essential for Catholics, Sr. Lucy Thorson believes.

“For us as Catholics it is really not a luxury, it is a necessity for us to be familiar with Judaism,” said the Sister of Sion. “It is the roots of our Christian faith. So many of our Christian practices are rooted in the Jewish tradition.”

Despite this connection which is grounded in “the Jewishness of Jesus,” a significant degree of tension has existed between the two faiths in the past.

“Our history has been very painful with our relationship with the Jewish people.”

Thorson blamed misunderstandings during the interpretation process of the New Testament resulting in negative portrayals of the Jews as one of the leading causes of this tension.

But things have been improving since Vatican II, she noted. During an evening lecture at Scarboro Missions on Feb. 5, Thorson reinforced this by highlighting some of the major milestones in Catholic-Jewish relations starting with the council.

The event, which was part of World Interfaith Harmony Week, drew about 35 people despite a winter storm blanketing much of the city earlier that day.
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Pope on Shoah: Never again may violence humiliate the dignity of man!

In his weekly audience Pope Benedict categorically condemned all attempts to deny the Holocaust and explained the reasons for the lifting of the excommunication of four bishops from the fraternity of St. Pius X. … Pope Benedict’s thoughts then turned to the Shoah, the memorial of which was celebrated this week. He said “the memories and images of my many visits to Auschwitz come back to me in these days, a death camp in which blind racial and religious hatred led to the ferocious extermination of millions of Jews and other innocent victims”.
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Pope Benedict XVI says he has “full and unquestionable solidarity” with Jewish people and he has warned against any form of Holocaust denial. The Pope’s statement comes after outrage at his recent reinstatement of an excommunicated bishop, who has said the genocide of Jews in gas chambers never took place.
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The challenge of mixed marriage in American life—and how the communities are responding to its problems andpossibilities both for the couples and for the raising of children—was the major topic of discussion at the semi-annual meeting of the U.S. Catholic-Jewish Consultation Committee. With the mixed marriage rate rising to around 50 percent in the Jewish
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