1965 · Vatican City

Nostra Aetate and the Beginning of Jewish-Catholic Dialogue

In 1965, the Second Vatican Council issued Nostra Aetate, which repudiated the charge of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Christ and launched a new era of dialogue between Catholics and Jews.

For most of Christian history, the relationship between Catholics and Jews was defined by suspicion, hostility, and at times outright persecution. The charge that the Jews were collectively responsible for killing Christ — the 'deicide' accusation — was used to justify pogroms, forced conversions, ghettos, and expulsions across Europe for centuries. The Holocaust forced a reckoning. Pope John XXIII, who had personally helped save Jews during the war while serving as a diplomat in Turkey, wanted the council to address the Church's relationship with Judaism directly. The result was Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), promulgated on October 28, 1965. The declaration stated plainly that what happened during Christ's Passion could not be charged against all Jews then living or against Jews today, and it deplored all forms of antisemitism. It acknowledged the Jewish roots of Christianity and affirmed that God's covenant with the Jewish people remains valid. The document was not without controversy. Arab Christian bishops worried about political implications regarding Israel. Some conservative Catholics resisted any change in the traditional teaching. But the declaration passed with overwhelming support. In the decades since, Catholic-Jewish relations have been transformed. Popes have visited synagogues, participated in Holocaust commemorations, and established formal dialogue commissions. None of this erased the centuries of harm, but it established a new baseline that would have been unthinkable a generation earlier.

Why it matters

Repudiated centuries of anti-Jewish teaching, formally rejected the deicide charge, and opened a new chapter in Catholic-Jewish relations that has reshaped both communities.