Nostra Aetate - In Our Time

26 Vatican II created a lasting impetus for a multitude of dialogue forums. The World Council of Churches, which hosts 345 churches including Protestant and Orthodox, became involved together with the Roman Catholic Church with its observer status. These ecu- menical discussions informed the joint declaration dated 1999. The paper entitled Christians Meeting Muslims published by the Council in 1977 records the results of a ten-year-long process of dialogue. Very important for the Protestant Churches is also the statement made in Nostra Aetate about the Jews and the Church’s relationship to the Jews. The document points out that the Passion and the death of Christ “cannot be charged against all Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today” and “decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone”. From the 1960s, this view was adopted by many Protestant Churches which confessed to having been guilty of anti-Judaism for cen- turies, initiating the building of new relations with the Jews and Jewish communities. As a Protestant theologian I’m aware that the Roman Catholic Church did not drop its official teaching, but stuck to the idea of the Roman Catholic Church as being the only way to the fullness of salvation. The documents including Nostra Aetate can be read by Roman Catho- lics and others either from this closer aspect, or from a more open perspective. Within the scope of what was possible at that time, Vatican II was a milestone. It was the highly important beginning of the fostering of mutual understanding and peace-building, and had a very broad political impact worldwide. Much was accomplished in that there began ecumenical cooperation between the Protestant Churches on the basis of religious communities as well as in scholarly work. There was also a renewal of rela- tions between Christians and Jews in addition to a new perspective on Christian-Muslim relations. I personally do very much regret that terrorist acts are currently mobilising all souls who make religions in general responsible for violence and warfare, and who demand once more to eliminate all religious statements from public discourse. For instance, the Swiss broadcasting company RTS recently cancelled all of its religious magazine pro- grammes. But I think that the contrary should hold sway, with our support for – and enlargement of – religious programmes for the purpose of offering information and religious edification, and documenting the various approaches within and between the religions in order not to allow a particular group, or certain fundamentalists groups, to monopolise communications with their one- sided, narrow views. Vatican II is, for me, a best-practice example that should be continuously updated. And I think that it’s necessary to deploy these best-practice examples, not only against terrorist actions but towards bringing interreligious understanding and dialogue to the public through all kinds of media. Sometimes it seems that we collectively take backward steps but, with what hap- pened in the 1960s and the progress made since then, I am really convinced that these efforts will not be in vain. Thank you very much. ECUMENICAL PERSPECT I VES OF NOSTRA AETATE Dr. Heine speaking at the international congress for Interreligiöse Seelsorge at the University of Bern