The Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate, on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, was solemnly approved on Oct. 28, 1965, along with several other Council documents.

The text represented one of many groundbreaking moments for Vatican II, as Cardinal Augustin Bea — the German Jesuit and great champion of the cause of Christian unity — pointed out before the Council Fathers. The declaration marked the first time that an ecumenical council had made a teaching about the attitude of Christians toward non-Christians and the first time that the Church had proposed a fraternal dialogue with these followers of other religions.

The declaration traces its origin to a specific command of Pope St. John XXIII, who asked the Secretariat for Christian Unity, headed by Cardinal Bea, to produce a text that made special reference to the Jewish people. The proposed draft was later removed from the Council’s agenda, due to the tense political situation in the Middle East. However, some months after the beginning of the Council, in December 1962, Cardinal Bea presented the issue once again in writing to the Pope, who shortly afterward expressed his full approval for the document.

Nearly a year later, in November 1963, the same cardinal presented the text to the Council Fathers. He recognized that the text, while brief, dealt with a subject matter that was not easy. He desired to make clear that the document was not intended to deal with national or political issues, but rather had a purely religious aim.

The proposed document, while expressing a desire for dialogue and cooperation with all non-Christians, manifested a particular esteem toward the Jewish people, due to their special connection with the Church of Christ. The brief draft articulates this special bond regarding the revealed mystery of faith, in which all the faithful of Christ are “children of Abraham according to faith” (Galatians 3:7) and in which Christ has brought together Jews and Gentiles in love (Ephesians 2:14-17). 

While recognizing that a great part of the Chosen People is not united to Christ, the text asserted that it would be unjust to call them a cursed people, since they remain most dear to God for the patriarchs and for the gifts given to them (Romans 11:28), stating: “the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God.” The proposed decree likewise condemned the idea that the Chosen People would be guilty of “deicide” with regard to Christ, since the sins of all men were the cause of his passion and death. The draft further warns priests against anything in catechetical instruction or preaching that might lead to hatred or contempt for the Jewish people.

As Cardinal Bea affirmed in his speech, such an attitude was in profound harmony with that of Christ himself as well as Sts. Peter and Paul. The German Scripture scholar went on to recall the tragic history of recent decades, in which antisemitism had been rampant in various areas and in a very violent and criminal form — especially in Germany — leading to the extermination of millions of Jews. These actions, Cardinal Bea continued, were accompanied and sustained by a most powerful propaganda against the Jews, at times trying to draw from the New Testament and from the history of the Church. The Church, he said, in seeking to renew herself in the Council, needed to deal with this issue.

As Cardinal Bea’s speech forcefully indicated, the Catholic Church’s desire for a warmer relationship with the Jewish people, and with non-Christians more broadly, by no means involved taking on a secular mindset of modern times. To the contrary, this new openness of dialogue was deeply connected to the Church’s fresh contemplation of her own mystery, a central theme of the Council. In fact, the proposed declaration regarding Jews and non-Christians was originally intended to form part of the Council’s constitution on the Church (later known as Lumen Gentium) and was originally presented to the Council assembly as part of a text on the unity of Christians. 

Some Council Fathers, especially from the Arab world, expressed concern about the opportuneness of the draft in light of the sensitive political circumstances. Melkite Archbishop Joseph Tawil, for example, expressed his concern that the declaration risked alienating the Church from the Arab peoples and from the Muslim world. He asked why the Council was focusing on the Jewish people and antisemitism, rather than on other religions and other types of discrimination.

The Secretariat for Christian Unity would take account of such concerns in the subsequent revisions. The final text would come to emphasize more clearly the unity of all persons in God, their Creator and also their “final goal,” as well as the “brotherly” relations with which Christians are called to live — all in light of faith in God, “the Father of all.” A description of the Church’s relation with Hinduism and Buddhism would be added, along with a particular mention of Muslims, with whom the Church shares belief in the one God as well as other elements.

Along with the increased attention to other religions, the great majority of the Council Fathers recognized that a statement about the Jewish people was opportune within the document. In this matter, the bishops of the United States would be quite vocal.

Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston, one such voice, saw the declaration on Jewish people as an opportunity to show true solicitude and true charity toward all, and he urged the Council to make the declaration more positive, less timid and more charitable. The section dedicated to this topic would be enriched with a deeper scriptural context, such as in the citation of the words of St. Paul about the Chosen People: “Theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants” (Romans 9:4). The text would maintain its original strong condemnation of antisemitism, with a broader perspective of the Church’s “rejection of every persecution against any man.”

In giving expression to such sentiments, the Council Fathers would debate extensively about the right language. For instance, the Council, after long deliberation, would ultimately remove the expression “guilty of deicide,” given the different views on this phrase and the complexity of the Gospel account.

However, as Cardinal Bea explained in another speech shortly before the Council would vote on a final draft, the intention was to express the same reality behind the original denunciation of any attempt to hold the People of Israel as guilty of “deicide,” but with language that might express this truth more clearly and with “more suitable words.” 

While acknowledging that in the Gospel account some Jews were involved in the death of Christ, Nostra Aetate affirms that the guilt for Christ’s passion cannot be attributed to all the Jews of Our Lord’s times, nor against the Jews of today, and exhorts Christians to reject any antisemitism.

The declaration closes by broadening this teaching to reprove, “as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion.” These words, along with the entire teaching of this historic document, remain for us a testament to the deep supernatural charity, grounded in the Church’s mystery, that Christians are called to live toward all men and in a particular way toward the Chosen People of Israel.