Catholic-Jewish Relations Celebrated at Marist School

The 60th anniversary of the important Catholic document, Nostra Aetate, that inaugurated a new era in Jewish and Catholic relations, was celebrated by the Catholic and Jewish communities at The Marist School in Brookhaven.

The document, whose Latin title is translated as, “In Our Time,” was approved by the Second Vatican Council in October 1965 and signed by Pope Paul VI. It was the first document in the 2,000-year history of Catholic history to deal with the often-contentious relationship between Jews and the Catholic Church.

Significantly, the document absolved Jews in the trial and crucifixion of the Christian Messiah and, according to the document, “decries hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”

It also encouraged conversation between Catholics and Jews “to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect,” which had not always been evident in contacts between the two religions.

Rabbi Noam Marans, national director of interreligious relations at the American Jewish Committee, which co-sponsored the evening, was a prominent speaker at the event. He described Nostra Aetate as “the most important interreligious document in the history of humanity.” The work done by the Second Vatican Council was described as a distinct break with the past as well as an acknowledgment of the Holocaust.

“It came to resolve a problem,” Rabbi Marans said, “an epidemic of hatred that emanated from 2,000 years of Christian teaching that led to pain and misery for the Jewish people and persecution, expulsion, blood libels, pogroms, and ultimately, the foundation for modern antisemitism and the lowest moment in Jewish and indeed human history.”

Rabbi Marans’ description of the importance of the Nosta Aetate document was confirmed by Archbishop Gregory Hartmeyer, who also spoke at the Marist gathering. The archbishop leads the 1.2 million Catholics in the regional Atlanta archdiocese and chairs the board of the National Catholic Educational Association. He called the document brief but “profound in its impact, marking a decisive turn toward dialogue, respect, and mutual understanding.”

“It emphasizes the shared spiritual heritage of Christians and Jews and affirms that G-d’s covenant with the Jewish people has not been revoked. This teaching laid the foundation for a renewed and enduring commitment to Jewish-Christian dialogue for more than 60 years after its promulgation. Nostra Aetate continues to call Catholics and Jews to deeper unity and solidarity rooted in a shared belief in one G-d, our reverence for sacred scripture, and our common responsibility to witness to justice and peace and the dignity of every human person.”

The Marist program was led by Brendan Murphy, who has taught history at the Catholic high school and has been instrumental in making the school an important part of Catholic and Jewish dialogue on both the local and national levels.

He founded the Bearing Witness Institute at the school to promote Holocaust education and awareness and teacher training with the Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies in New York, the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust, and the Breman Jewish Museum. He has spoken widely in the community and leads student Holocaust education trips to Europe each summer. He described the evening at Marist as a call for people of faith to expand the conversations that have begun.

“Tonight is not simply about commemorating a document,” he said. “It is instead a celebration of relationships that have been built patiently over time, often through honest conversation, sometimes through very difficult reckoning, but always through a shared belief that dialogue always matters. The fact that we gather this evening as Christians and Jews, clergy and lay leaders, educators and students of all ages, speaks to how far that vision of Nostra Aetate has carried all of us, and how much responsibility it places on all of us to see it through, to carry it forward.”

As a symbol of the reorientation in Catholic and Jewish understanding, Murphy played an important role, almost five years ago, in bringing to the school a large-scale bronze sculpture that celebrates the new era in Christian-Jewish relations. The sculpture, by Joshua Koffman, celebrates two allegorical figures. One is Ecclesia, which represents the Christian Church, and the other is Synagoga, which represents Judaism. They are seated together, leaning toward each other to study their sacred texts together.

The original sculpture is at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia where it was viewed by the late Pope Francis in 2014. At the time, he described the work as the “rich complementarity that allows [the Church and the Jewish people] to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another mine the riches of G-d’s word.”