Cardinal Cushing and the Jews: An American Context for Nostra Aetate

When Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council's declaration on non-Christian religions, absolved the Jewish people of collective responsibility for the death of Christ, the church at last renounced an ancient prejudice. Among the American bishops at the council, the most vigorous advocate for this historic step was Boston's Richard Cardinal Cushing. Drawing on untapped archival sources, this paper examines the context of Cushing's pivotal intervention, tracing his grassroots diplomacy with Jewish communities and his cultivation of Augustin Cardinal Bea, the Vatican official who led the charge for the declaration. Cushing's own zeal for Jewish-Christian relations arose in part from his encounter with anti-Semitism in his own archdiocese, particularly in the right-wing Catholic movement led by Father Leonard Feeney. Cushing's clash with traditionalists, and his belief that interfaith charity takes priority over doctrinal precision, mirrors ideological tensions in the church today, sixty years after the close of the council.