At 10:00am this morning, in Saint Peter's Square, an Inter-religious General Audience was held to mark the 50th anniversary of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate. Before making his way to the General Audience in Saint Peter's Square, the Holy Father, Pope Francis met with some sick and disabled pilgrims who were gathered in the Paul VI Hall due to inclement weather.
Present at today's General Audience were representatives of various religions and participants who are taking part in an International Convention which was organized on this occasion by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue in collaboration with the Commission for religious relations with Jews and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, as well as the Pontifical Gregorian University.
This meeting began with greetings offered by the President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, and by the President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch; then, following the reading of an excerpt from Nostra Aetate in various languages, the Holy Father, Pope Francis shared a meditation on this theme.
The Pope also extended particular greetings to groups of the faithful who were present. He then issued a call for solidarity with the people of Pakistan and of Afghanistan who recently experienced a devastating earthquake.
The Audience concluded with a moment of personal silent prayer and a greeting offered to representatives of various religions who were present.
Good morning to all of you! You are here today not because we have placed you in isolation!, but because the weather is bad today and it's raining. Now, I believe that the rain has stopped, but it is still unstable, so here you will be more comfortable and you can watch the audience on the jumbo-tron. I will tell the people in the Square that you are here and we will have a chance to greet one another and to be together. I ask you to pray for me, and I pray for you.
May you offer to Jesus the suffering of your illnesses: sickness is brutal for everyone, everyone; may you be able to offer your suffering to Jesus and continue by asking for the grace to move from the sadness of your sufferings to never losing hope. Hope that brings us joy.
Now, let us pray the Hail Mary together, and I will give you my blessing.
Hail Mary ...
Enjoy the Audience from here, and please pray for me!
Your Holiness,
Fifty years have now passed since the proclamation of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate, when the Church, paying heed to the rapidly changing world, began in a decisive way to invite her members to promote relationships of respect, friendship and dialogue with persons of other religions.
Present here today, among others, are participants taking part in an International Convention on Nostra Aetate, which is taking place at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and representatives of various religions. We are encouraged in our common quest for peace by the promise of the prophet Isaiah: The Lord will tear from this mountain the veil that covers the face of all peoples (Is 25:7).
The journey toward this mountain, though at times an arduous climb, has also been exhilarating during these first fifty years and we who are gathered here with Your Holiness are witnesses, heirs and protagonists of this journey.
Thank you for your illuminating witness, which encourages us to continue along the path of inter-religious dialogue, going out to meet other believers with a clear understanding of our own identity, but with a spirit of great respect, esteem and friendship, ready to work together with all those who pray and think in ways which are different from ourselves.
Thank you Holy Father for your continued and untiring invitations, extended to all believers and to all men and women of good will, to work for peace by eliminating injustices and inequalities, and taking care of our common home.
Today, gathered here in Rome, along with you, the Successor of Peter, we want to pray for peace - as we did in the past in Assisi, and to bear witness to everyone in the world that fraternity is possible.
Thank you.
Holy Father,
It is a joy for me and an honour to be able to greet Your Holiness in Saint Peter's Square, on behalf of the representatives of the Jewish community who are participating in the International Convention on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the proclamation of Nostra Aetate, and especially in the name of the delegation from the World Jewish Congress. Today's Audience is an important contribution to the deepening of the culture of encounter between persons, people and religions which are very close to Your Holiness' heart.
A meeting filled with promise also took place at the beginning of this process and led to the writing of Nostra Aetate. It was a dialogue that took place on 13 June 1960 between Pope Saint John XXIII and the well-known Jew, Jules Isaak, who presented to the Supreme Pontiff a Denkschrift with an urgent request to promote a new vision of relationships between the Church and Judaism. Only a few months after that meeting, Pope John XXIII assigned the task of preparing, for the Council, a Declaration concerning the Jewish people. The text was eventually introduced as the fourth article in the Declaration on relationships between the Church and non-Christian religions.
This article represented not only the point of departure, but the focus of the entire Declaration Nostra Aetate. In fact, the Church has a particular relationship with the Jewish people, as we read in the first phrase of the Declaration: As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham's stock (Nostra Aetate, 4). In the light of this communion which has existed between Jews and Christians throughout the history of salvation, the Council placed into evidence the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and recognized the great common spiritual patrimony shared by Christians and Jews. The Council also deplored all hatred and manifestations of violence directed even by Christians toward the Jewish people and condemned every form of anti-semitism.
Nostra Aetate is rightly considered to be the basis and the Magna Carta of a fruitful relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people. On the 50th anniversary of this Declaration, we can remember with gratitude the fact that even after the Council, all the Popes who have followed have consolidated and expanded upon the encouraging prospects that are found in Nostra Aetate. Holy Father, you have repeated time and again your great appreciation for the Jewish people; you have especially expressed this truth during your visit to the Holy Land with your prayer at the Western Wall and your poignant reflection at the Yad Vashem Memorial.
In our days, at a time when unfortunately, there have been new waves of antisemitism, you, Holy Father, constantly remind us Christians that it is impossible to be both Christian and antisemitic. For your clear message and for the good will that you have always demonstrated toward our Jewish brothers and sisters, I thank you with all my heart, and also in the name of the Jewish representatives who are here present as well as the entire Jewish community, and I ask you to give us your special beracha (blessing). Schalom!
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
There are often persons or groups belonging to other religions present at the General Audiences; but today this presence is very special as we remember together the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate concerning the relationships between the Catholic Church and non-Christian religions. This theme was strongly present in the heart of Blessed Pope Paul VI, who on the feast of Pentecost during the year preceding the end of the Council, had already instituted the Secretariat for non-Christians, which is presently known as the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. I therefore wish to express my gratitude and my warm welcome to persons and groups from various religions who are present here today, especially to those who have travelled great distances.
The Second Vatican Council was an extraordinary time of reflection, dialogue and prayer in order to renew the Catholic Church's regard for herself and for the world. A reading of the signs of the times in view of an update which is aimed at a double faithfulness: faithfulness to ecclesial tradition and faithfulness to the history of men and women of our time. In fact, God, who revealed himself in creation and throughout history, who has spoken through the prophets and most fully through his Son made man (cf Heb 1:1), speaks to the heart and the spirit of every human being who seeks truth and ways to practice it.
The message of the Declaration Nostra Aetate remains present. I want to recall very briefly some of its most important points:
We especially give thanks to God for the real transformation that has taken place over the past 50 years in the relationship that exists between Christians and Jews. Indifference and opposition have been transformed into cooperation and good will. Enemies and strangers have become friends and brothers. The Council, with the Declaration Nostra Aetate, has paved the way: yes to the rediscovery of Christianity's Jewish roots; no to every form of anti-semitism and condemnation of every insult, discrimination and persecution that come about because of it. Knowledge, respect and mutual esteem are the path that, if they are particularly important to our relationship with Jews, are equally as important to our relationships with other religions. I think especially of Muslims who - as the Council recalled - adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men (NA, 3). They refer to the patrimony of Abraham, they venerate Jesus as a prophet, they honour his virgin Mother Mary, they await the day of judgement and they practice prayer, almsgiving and fasting (cf NA, 3).
The dialogue that is needed must be open and respectful, and therefore able to bear fruit. Mutual respect is a condition and, at the same time, an end of inter-religious dialogue: respect for every person's right to life, to physical dignity and to fundamental freedoms including freedom of conscience, of thought and of religious expression.
The world is watching us believers, encouraging us to work together and with with all men and women of good will who do not profess any religion in search of effective answers to many things: peace, hunger, the suffering of millions of people, the crises of our time, violence, especially that which is committed in the name of religion, corruption, moral degradation, crises within families, in the economy, in the world of finance and above all those that affect hope. We believers do not possess recipes for these problems, but we have a great resource: prayer. We believers pray. We need to pray. Prayer is our treasure, which we practice according to various traditions in order to ask for the gifts that we need.
Because of violence and terrorism, an attitude of suspicion or fear of religious condemnation has spread. In truth, even though no religion is immune from the risk of fundamentalism or extremism in individuals or groups (cf Speech to the Congress of the United States of America, 24 September 2015), we must maintain existing positive values and that are worthy of being promoted, since they are sources of hope. We must raise our focus in order to continue along the path. Dialogue that is based on respectful trust can lead to the planting of good that in time will become seeds of friendship and cooperation in many ways, and above all in service to the poor, the little ones, the elderly, in welcoming migrants, in paying attention to those who are excluded. May we walk together, caring for one another and for all of creation. All believers of all religions. Together, may we praise the Creator for having entrusted us with the garden of the world, to cultivate it and to care for it as a common good, and may we work together to combat poverty and to ensure conditions of dignified living for every man and woman.
The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which will soon begin, is an ideal occasion for us to work together in the field of charitable work. In this effort, where compassion is the most important, may there be united with us many other people who do not feel that they are believers or that they seek God or truth, persons who focus on the faces of others, especially the faces of their brothers and sisters in need. The mercy that we are promised embraces all of creation, which God has entrusted to us and made us stewards, not exploiters, or even worse, destroyers. We should always propose to leave the world a better place than we first found it (cf Encyclical Laudato Si', 194), beginning with the communities in which we live and the little gestures of our daily lives.
Dear brothers and sisters, as to the future of inter-religious dialogue, the first thing that must be done is prayer. Prayer for one another: we are all brothers and sisters! Without the Lord, nothing is possible; with him, all things come into being! May our prayer - every one of us according to our own traditions - make it possible for us to fully embrace the will of God, who desires that all men and women should be recognized as brothers and sisters and that they might live with each other, forming together one great human family in harmony and diversity.
Following the established custom, the Holy Father's meditation was then summarized and presented in various languages, and His Holiness offered particular greetings to each of the groups of pilgrims who were present. To English-speaking pilgrims, he said:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, including those from England, Wales, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Nigeria, Israel, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the United States of America. In a particular way I greet the ecumenical delegation from Korea, and I renew my thanks to the representatives of the different religions who have joined us today. God bless you all!
Following the summaries of today's meditation, the Holy Father issued the following call for prayer:
We are close to the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan who have suffered a forceful earthquake, which has caused many deaths and much destruction. Let us pray for those who have died and for their families, for all those who have been wounded and those who are now homeless, asking that God may grant them relief from their suffering and courage in the face of such adversity. We must demonstrate to these, our brothers, concrete signs of our solidarity.
The General Audience concluded with a moment of silent prayer, during which the Holy Father asked all those present to pray for the victims of this earthquake, for God's continued guidance in the work begun by the Declaration Nostra Aetate and for peace in the world.
Present at today's General Audience were representatives of various religions and participants who are taking part in an International Convention which was organized on this occasion by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue in collaboration with the Commission for religious relations with Jews and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, as well as the Pontifical Gregorian University.
This meeting began with greetings offered by the President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, and by the President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch; then, following the reading of an excerpt from Nostra Aetate in various languages, the Holy Father, Pope Francis shared a meditation on this theme.
The Pope also extended particular greetings to groups of the faithful who were present. He then issued a call for solidarity with the people of Pakistan and of Afghanistan who recently experienced a devastating earthquake.
The Audience concluded with a moment of personal silent prayer and a greeting offered to representatives of various religions who were present.
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
to the sick and disabled gathered in the Paul VI Hall
Good morning to all of you! You are here today not because we have placed you in isolation!, but because the weather is bad today and it's raining. Now, I believe that the rain has stopped, but it is still unstable, so here you will be more comfortable and you can watch the audience on the jumbo-tron. I will tell the people in the Square that you are here and we will have a chance to greet one another and to be together. I ask you to pray for me, and I pray for you.
May you offer to Jesus the suffering of your illnesses: sickness is brutal for everyone, everyone; may you be able to offer your suffering to Jesus and continue by asking for the grace to move from the sadness of your sufferings to never losing hope. Hope that brings us joy.
Now, let us pray the Hail Mary together, and I will give you my blessing.
Hail Mary ...
Enjoy the Audience from here, and please pray for me!
Greetings offered by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran
at the beginning of the General Audience
Your Holiness,
Fifty years have now passed since the proclamation of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate, when the Church, paying heed to the rapidly changing world, began in a decisive way to invite her members to promote relationships of respect, friendship and dialogue with persons of other religions.
Present here today, among others, are participants taking part in an International Convention on Nostra Aetate, which is taking place at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and representatives of various religions. We are encouraged in our common quest for peace by the promise of the prophet Isaiah: The Lord will tear from this mountain the veil that covers the face of all peoples (Is 25:7).
The journey toward this mountain, though at times an arduous climb, has also been exhilarating during these first fifty years and we who are gathered here with Your Holiness are witnesses, heirs and protagonists of this journey.
Thank you for your illuminating witness, which encourages us to continue along the path of inter-religious dialogue, going out to meet other believers with a clear understanding of our own identity, but with a spirit of great respect, esteem and friendship, ready to work together with all those who pray and think in ways which are different from ourselves.
Thank you Holy Father for your continued and untiring invitations, extended to all believers and to all men and women of good will, to work for peace by eliminating injustices and inequalities, and taking care of our common home.
Today, gathered here in Rome, along with you, the Successor of Peter, we want to pray for peace - as we did in the past in Assisi, and to bear witness to everyone in the world that fraternity is possible.
Thank you.
Greetings offered by Cardinal Kurt Koch
at the beginning of the General Audience
Holy Father,
It is a joy for me and an honour to be able to greet Your Holiness in Saint Peter's Square, on behalf of the representatives of the Jewish community who are participating in the International Convention on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the proclamation of Nostra Aetate, and especially in the name of the delegation from the World Jewish Congress. Today's Audience is an important contribution to the deepening of the culture of encounter between persons, people and religions which are very close to Your Holiness' heart.
A meeting filled with promise also took place at the beginning of this process and led to the writing of Nostra Aetate. It was a dialogue that took place on 13 June 1960 between Pope Saint John XXIII and the well-known Jew, Jules Isaak, who presented to the Supreme Pontiff a Denkschrift with an urgent request to promote a new vision of relationships between the Church and Judaism. Only a few months after that meeting, Pope John XXIII assigned the task of preparing, for the Council, a Declaration concerning the Jewish people. The text was eventually introduced as the fourth article in the Declaration on relationships between the Church and non-Christian religions.
This article represented not only the point of departure, but the focus of the entire Declaration Nostra Aetate. In fact, the Church has a particular relationship with the Jewish people, as we read in the first phrase of the Declaration: As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham's stock (Nostra Aetate, 4). In the light of this communion which has existed between Jews and Christians throughout the history of salvation, the Council placed into evidence the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and recognized the great common spiritual patrimony shared by Christians and Jews. The Council also deplored all hatred and manifestations of violence directed even by Christians toward the Jewish people and condemned every form of anti-semitism.
Nostra Aetate is rightly considered to be the basis and the Magna Carta of a fruitful relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people. On the 50th anniversary of this Declaration, we can remember with gratitude the fact that even after the Council, all the Popes who have followed have consolidated and expanded upon the encouraging prospects that are found in Nostra Aetate. Holy Father, you have repeated time and again your great appreciation for the Jewish people; you have especially expressed this truth during your visit to the Holy Land with your prayer at the Western Wall and your poignant reflection at the Yad Vashem Memorial.
In our days, at a time when unfortunately, there have been new waves of antisemitism, you, Holy Father, constantly remind us Christians that it is impossible to be both Christian and antisemitic. For your clear message and for the good will that you have always demonstrated toward our Jewish brothers and sisters, I thank you with all my heart, and also in the name of the Jewish representatives who are here present as well as the entire Jewish community, and I ask you to give us your special beracha (blessing). Schalom!
Catechesis of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the Inter-religious General Audience
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
There are often persons or groups belonging to other religions present at the General Audiences; but today this presence is very special as we remember together the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate concerning the relationships between the Catholic Church and non-Christian religions. This theme was strongly present in the heart of Blessed Pope Paul VI, who on the feast of Pentecost during the year preceding the end of the Council, had already instituted the Secretariat for non-Christians, which is presently known as the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. I therefore wish to express my gratitude and my warm welcome to persons and groups from various religions who are present here today, especially to those who have travelled great distances.
The Second Vatican Council was an extraordinary time of reflection, dialogue and prayer in order to renew the Catholic Church's regard for herself and for the world. A reading of the signs of the times in view of an update which is aimed at a double faithfulness: faithfulness to ecclesial tradition and faithfulness to the history of men and women of our time. In fact, God, who revealed himself in creation and throughout history, who has spoken through the prophets and most fully through his Son made man (cf Heb 1:1), speaks to the heart and the spirit of every human being who seeks truth and ways to practice it.
The message of the Declaration Nostra Aetate remains present. I want to recall very briefly some of its most important points:
- growing interdependence of people (cf NA, 1);
- the human quest for a sense of life, of suffering, of death: questions which are always part of our journey (cf NA, 1);
- the common origin and the common destiny of humanity (cf NA, 1);
- the unity of the human family (cf NA, 1);
- religions as quests for God or for the Absolute, within various ethnicities and cultures (cf NA, 1);
- the benevolent gaze of the Church which is attentive to other religions: which rejects nothing in them which is beautiful and true (cf NA, 2);
- the Church also regards with great esteem all believes from all religions, appreciating their spiritual and moral commitment (cf NA, 3);
- the Church, which is open to dialogue with all people, and which at the same time is faithful to the truth in which it believes, beginning with the salvation offered to all people that finds its origin in Jesus, the only saviour, and within which the Holy Spirit is at work as a source of peace and love.
We especially give thanks to God for the real transformation that has taken place over the past 50 years in the relationship that exists between Christians and Jews. Indifference and opposition have been transformed into cooperation and good will. Enemies and strangers have become friends and brothers. The Council, with the Declaration Nostra Aetate, has paved the way: yes to the rediscovery of Christianity's Jewish roots; no to every form of anti-semitism and condemnation of every insult, discrimination and persecution that come about because of it. Knowledge, respect and mutual esteem are the path that, if they are particularly important to our relationship with Jews, are equally as important to our relationships with other religions. I think especially of Muslims who - as the Council recalled - adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men (NA, 3). They refer to the patrimony of Abraham, they venerate Jesus as a prophet, they honour his virgin Mother Mary, they await the day of judgement and they practice prayer, almsgiving and fasting (cf NA, 3).
The dialogue that is needed must be open and respectful, and therefore able to bear fruit. Mutual respect is a condition and, at the same time, an end of inter-religious dialogue: respect for every person's right to life, to physical dignity and to fundamental freedoms including freedom of conscience, of thought and of religious expression.
The world is watching us believers, encouraging us to work together and with with all men and women of good will who do not profess any religion in search of effective answers to many things: peace, hunger, the suffering of millions of people, the crises of our time, violence, especially that which is committed in the name of religion, corruption, moral degradation, crises within families, in the economy, in the world of finance and above all those that affect hope. We believers do not possess recipes for these problems, but we have a great resource: prayer. We believers pray. We need to pray. Prayer is our treasure, which we practice according to various traditions in order to ask for the gifts that we need.
Because of violence and terrorism, an attitude of suspicion or fear of religious condemnation has spread. In truth, even though no religion is immune from the risk of fundamentalism or extremism in individuals or groups (cf Speech to the Congress of the United States of America, 24 September 2015), we must maintain existing positive values and that are worthy of being promoted, since they are sources of hope. We must raise our focus in order to continue along the path. Dialogue that is based on respectful trust can lead to the planting of good that in time will become seeds of friendship and cooperation in many ways, and above all in service to the poor, the little ones, the elderly, in welcoming migrants, in paying attention to those who are excluded. May we walk together, caring for one another and for all of creation. All believers of all religions. Together, may we praise the Creator for having entrusted us with the garden of the world, to cultivate it and to care for it as a common good, and may we work together to combat poverty and to ensure conditions of dignified living for every man and woman.
The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which will soon begin, is an ideal occasion for us to work together in the field of charitable work. In this effort, where compassion is the most important, may there be united with us many other people who do not feel that they are believers or that they seek God or truth, persons who focus on the faces of others, especially the faces of their brothers and sisters in need. The mercy that we are promised embraces all of creation, which God has entrusted to us and made us stewards, not exploiters, or even worse, destroyers. We should always propose to leave the world a better place than we first found it (cf Encyclical Laudato Si', 194), beginning with the communities in which we live and the little gestures of our daily lives.
Dear brothers and sisters, as to the future of inter-religious dialogue, the first thing that must be done is prayer. Prayer for one another: we are all brothers and sisters! Without the Lord, nothing is possible; with him, all things come into being! May our prayer - every one of us according to our own traditions - make it possible for us to fully embrace the will of God, who desires that all men and women should be recognized as brothers and sisters and that they might live with each other, forming together one great human family in harmony and diversity.
Following the established custom, the Holy Father's meditation was then summarized and presented in various languages, and His Holiness offered particular greetings to each of the groups of pilgrims who were present. To English-speaking pilgrims, he said:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, including those from England, Wales, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Nigeria, Israel, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the United States of America. In a particular way I greet the ecumenical delegation from Korea, and I renew my thanks to the representatives of the different religions who have joined us today. God bless you all!
Following the summaries of today's meditation, the Holy Father issued the following call for prayer:
We are close to the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan who have suffered a forceful earthquake, which has caused many deaths and much destruction. Let us pray for those who have died and for their families, for all those who have been wounded and those who are now homeless, asking that God may grant them relief from their suffering and courage in the face of such adversity. We must demonstrate to these, our brothers, concrete signs of our solidarity.
The General Audience concluded with a moment of silent prayer, during which the Holy Father asked all those present to pray for the victims of this earthquake, for God's continued guidance in the work begun by the Declaration Nostra Aetate and for peace in the world.
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