Nostra Aetate - In Our Time

55 of the wedge, and therefore it’s better to talk of parents in faith. And now, of course, we have Pope Francis who can affirm categorically what had already been said by John Paul II, that anti-Semitism is a sin against God and man and, furthermore, that it is impossible to be simulta- neously a real Christian and an anti-Semite and that, therefore, the love of the Jewish people is intrinsic to the very nature of what Christianity has to be. This is an unparalleled revolution in human history. Father Neu- haus again referred to it as one of the most significant changes of the twentieth century. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to claim that there is noth- ing comparable to this transformation in human history – to have seen a particular people as condemned, rejected by God, in league with the devil yesterday, and today a dearly beloved elder brother of the Church of an eternal covenant, intrinsic to the very nature of the Church. This has an enormously significant universal message. If such a relationship that was so chronic, so poisoned, so negative can be transformed into being one that is so positive and so constructive today, then there is no relationship that is beyond transformation, no matter how poisoned, how problematic, how vitiated it may be by politics. No relationship is beyond positive transformation and that I believe, ladies and gentlemen, is the real, inspiring message of Nostra Aetate . Everything is really possible. We can transform it all and we can turn our world into the kind of world that our religions teach it really should be and, if I may say so, I think this very institution is a reflection precisely of that message. At any rate it is the challenge for this institution to bring about the realisa- tion of that message. Thank you. NOSTRA AETATE AND THE RELIGIONS OF ABRAHAM Rabbi Rosen meeting at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem