As he gazed at the opening of the fourth session in the council hall, Nikkyo
Niwano, a Buddhist cleric invited as an observer, remembers the Solemn Mass.
What
"appeared before me was a sight in which multitudes of human beings, hailing
from all over the world, seemed to be waiting, holding their breath, to hear
the Buddha speak."
Thanks to the reminiscences of the Japanese scholar, we can understand
how important it was within the Church to reflect about relations with other
religions. In fact, if Niwano expressed admiration for Paul VI's open and respectful
attitude, he was equally surprised by the changing views within the Church
towards other religions, which he realised had a momentous historical
significance.
Nostra
Aetate,
the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions issued
by the Second Vatican Council on 28 October 1965, is with Dignitatis Humanae the second most important Church document of the
modern era, this according to Benedict XVI.
Born out of the need to re-kindle the
friendship with the Jewish people following the horrors of the Holocaust, the
discussions at the assembly ended up taking a different path, as it faced the
issue of the relationship with Islam and other great religions.
Re-establishing a
relationship with Jews was a priority. In1962, when the Second Vatican Council
opened, only two decades had passed since the terrible Nazi persecution of the
Jews.
At the time, the horror of the Holocaust was driving public opinion to reflect
on the singularity of what had happened then. Within the Church, increasingly
people were becoming aware of the errors committed during Christianity's 2,000
years of history, and of the great responsibility Christians had in the violent
explosion of anti-Semitism in the heart of Europe. "The first council held
after Auschwitz could not say nothing about such matters," said theologian Yves
Congar in what is an obvious reference to centuries of learnt Christian Judeophobia.
John XXIII had
already expressed a desire to issue a declaration on the Jews. In June 1960, after
an audience with Jewish scholar Jules Isaac, the pontiff set up a commission on
relations with Jews. Initially, the Council Fathers thought about including a
chapter in their work on ecumenism, but eventually, a decision was made to
issue a separate document that would address relations with other religions.
The change in perspective
was largely a function of balance of forces. Arab bishops were especially able
to persuade their colleagues to include a reference to dialogue with Islam. However,
the problem became more obvious when it was realised that a broader theological
and human perspective was needed on all religions, and on relations
Christianity had with them.
Early on, developments
were not easy. People were not yet ready and the "Jewish question" was still a
very touchy issue within the Church community. In June 1962, the Council's Central
Preparatory Commission set aside De Judaeis,
the first draft written by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
chaired by Card Bea, because of highly charged positions on diplomatic
relations with Arab countries. A new draft came was tabled in November 1963,
after long and providential discussions between Bea and Pope John XXIII, who
were both convinced of the gravity and urgency of a Church position on the
extermination of six million Jews.
What emerged was
an entirely different view on what the relationship between Judaism and
Christianity ought to be compared to the Latin Church's tradition in the second
millennium.
In the new text,
Israel's presence was recognised as part of the plan of salvation and an important
element in divine pedagogy, in the unfolding of the history of Revelation, as
the single and inescapable link between the people of the New Testament and the
descendants of Abraham. In addition to deploring the persecution and
expressions of anti-Semitism, Nostra
Aetate laid down the grounds for a renewed friendship with the Jewish
people.
However, the final
document cast a wider net. As historian Alberto Melloni noted, the declaration
includes "two distinctive discursive levels. The first and more important one
is that of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Christianity cannot
be thought without Judaism since the latter is constitutive, essential and
organic to its existence.
However, from the analysis of this relationship comes
a second element, namely a key to interpret and analyse the relationship between
the Christian faith and other religions."
Whether the product
of geopolitical considerations or diplomatic expedience, the brief passages in
the Council declaration on relations with other religions are in fact ground-breaking.
For the first time, terms like "dialogue" and "respect" became part of Church
vocabulary. At the same time, they revealed in all their dramatic quality the theological
tensions caused by the debate over the value to give other religions versus the
issue of salvation.
In the German preface
to his writings on the Council, the pope wrote, "In a carefully written and
extraordinarily meaningful document, a topic was raised whose significance
could not be predicted back then. It is increasingly clear now what kind and
how much work must be undertaken to differentiate, clarify and understand its
content. As people gradually came to know the latter, it became clear that the extraordinary
document had its flaws. In it, religion was only seen in a positive light; from
an historical and a theological point of view, all its sick and deranged forms were
ignored."
Notwithstanding the
Council declaration's prophetic value, we must also admit, as the current
pontiff does, that History has come up with new challenges. What Nostra Aetate could just hint at, now
requires an in-depth reflection that time has imposed. Thanks to John Paul II's
intuitive understanding, the experience and dialogue at Assisi in 1986 and many
magisterial interventions, the Church has taken great steps forward in redefining
the relationship among religions worldwide.
From recognising
in the Council declaration that other religions and faiths had some seeds of
truth, the Church has come a long way, to the point where dialogue has become
generalised, so much so that in some cases there have been theological and
pastoral excesses that needed careful magisterial corrections (Dominus Iesus is one example).
The journey
undertaken by the Church in the recent past has also forced other religions to
confront the need to deal with modernity. Such is the case with Islam. The few
lines dedicated to the followers of Muhammad in the original Council
declaration show that the Council Fathers were far from imaging how vital the
dialogue with the Muslim world would become after Islam took centre stage in
large parts of the world.
Nevertheless, Nostra Aetate continues to be the basis
for a positive approach to the Muslim world. It has provided ideas to the
Muslim world on how to address modernity. Certainly, as the pope correctly
noted, it lacks a lucid analysis of fundamentalisms and the dangers of a
violent and intolerance vision of faith. But then, in 1965 the Council Fathers lived
in a world divided between blocs, with the United States and Soviet Union facing
off in an escalation of provocations and challenges that cast the shadow of
nuclear war. At the time, 9/11 and the frightful clash of civilizations were still
far into the future.