Nostra Aetate at 60

This paper examines the tripartite dialogical paradigm of Church–dialogue–Christ, first established by Nostra Aetate at the Second Vatican Council, that informs the Catholic Church's approach to interreligious dialogue today. A study of Nostra Aetate and subsequent magisterial documents on dialogue reveals that the Church’s understanding of itself as missionary affects its approach to dialogue, and the content of this dialogue is determined by the Church’s understanding of Jesus Christ, who is both the Word professed in dialogue as well as the source of this very mission. Moreover, as the universalizing message of Nostra Aetate 'broke open' each point of this paradigm to the world, I argue that this paradigm of universal Church–universal dialogue–universal Christ still maintains efficacy, still speaks truth, in our current pluralistic context.

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.

Based on over 100  (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) archival collections, this paper re-examines the "Jewish origins" of Nostra Aetate. Surveying the recent literature, published since the last two council anniversary (>2005), it first outlines and then challenges how our current narrative has strongly entangled memory with history in the past decades. Going against the grain and back to archival collections, it elaborates a more nuanced, complex and pluralistic account of Vatican II, through the many immediate "non-Christian" perspectives, which have remained lost or largely unknown to a mainly Catholic scholarship on VaticanII. 

As it tries to account for Jewish and Muslim voices on VaticanII in an emic perspective, decentering the narrative from its traditional historical and theological background, context and audience, the paper addresses 60 years of solid scholarship on VaticanII with a daring question: what remains indeed from VaticanII if we tell "what happened there", based on non-Christian sources only? 

This paper will examine how Nostra Aetate uses Mary as a bridge figure between Christians and Muslims and how it influenced subsequent Popes and religious figures to reference her in various speeches and statements.  It will examine how Muslims have been receptive to this initiative through visiting Meryem Ana Evi in Turkey as well as writing about her in academic and scholarly settings.  It will conclude by critically examining this use and ask how Mary can open doors to new theological inquiry, shared devotion and Christian-Muslim dialogue.