Other articles from this issue | Version in English | Version in French

Editorial
The Editors

Ten years have passed. On October 28, 1965 Pope Paul VI promulgated the Vatican Council declaration Nostra Aetate. After Paul's letter to the Romans (A.D. 57/58), it was the first official document of the Catholic Church to reflect seriously on the relations between Christianity and Judaism. And like Paul's letter, it saw this relationship in the context of the salvation of all the nations. Following a difficult four-year struggle, the Vatican Council opened positive new perspectives on the place of the world religions in salvation history, and it could be suggested that it did so because of its new reflection on the Church's origins in the biblical and Jewish tradition. This was a radical re-discovery, and many Council fathers certainly did not foresee the far-reaching consequences of their statement. Like every revolutionary phenomenon, the Vatican Council was preceded by shocking events and the experience of profound mutation in a rapidly evolving society, all of which contributed to the mentality reflected in the Council documents. Pope John was convinced that Christian life had to become more biblical and ecumenical if it wanted to face the future. But the heart of the biblical and ecumenical attitude is the relationship between Christians and Jews, between the Church and the Jewish people, which necessarily puts the Kingdom of God in all its dimensions into the very center of faith and life.
The Vatican Council documents are the highlights and official expressions of a movement which will eventually change the image of the Church in the world and deeply affect its relations both with the Jewish people and with the other world religions. Every movement knows its ups and downs; so does this renewal movement. Courageous steps are succeeded by anxious hesitation or timid searching. But it is clear that this movement can no longer be stopped; too many factors - social, cultural, religious and political - push history forward. In ecumenism and Jewish-Christian relations, questions of identity and credibility are at stake.
In this issue SIDIC - which was founded a few days after the promulgation of Nostra Aetate - hopes to convey something of the feeling of this movement in Jewish-Christian rapprochement. Jewish collaborators and members of the SIDIC staff look at ten years of this relationship. They are aware of the importance of events and documents which preceded the Vatican. Council deliberations, such as the Ten Points of Seelisberg and the W.C.C. statements. But their reflections bear directly on the various aspects of Jewish-Christian encounter in the ten years which have elapsed since Nostra Aetate. Studying, analysing and comparing guidelines, statements and discussion papers, they indicate the trends of a movement, the obstacles to a real dialogue and the discoveries of convergences and divergences. They show the ongoing encounter between Jews and Christians as a venture of salvation history, in which many questions still call for dialogue, study and serious research. The most important achievement so far may be that Jews and Christians are really beginning to meet each other. Ten years is not much, but the ongoing movement in which we are involved is promising. It reminds us of the Lord's word: « Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? » (Is. 43:19).