Before his death in 1963, Pope John XXIII wrote a statement which he intended to be read aloud in all Roman Catholic Churches of the world on a fixed date: Originally,
Nostra aetate was only supposed to focus on the relationship between the Catholic church and Judaism. There were five different drafts of the document before a final version was accepted. Some bishops and cardinals objected, including Middle Eastern bishops who were unsympathetic to the new state of Israel.
Cardinal Bea decided to create a less contentious document which would stress
ecumenism between the
Catholic Church and all non-Christian faiths. While coverage of
Hinduism and
Buddhism is brief, two of the document's five sections are devoted to
Islam and
Judaism.
Before the Council: Decretum de Iudaeis, 1960–1962 met with
Jules Isaac in 1960, the author of
Jésus et Israël. After the meeting he directed the
SECU to prepare a document on Catholic–Jewish relations for the Second Vatican Council. The specific origins of
Nostra aetate can be traced directly to a meeting between
Pope John XXIII and
Jewish-French historian
Jules Isaac on 13 June 1960. Isaac wanted a document at the Second Vatican Council, in light of the
Holocaust, to specifically address the relationship between the Catholic Church and Judaism. In his meeting with John XXIII, Isaac used diplomatic language, pointing to the Fourth Chapter of the
Catechism of the Council of Trent, in which Jews are mentioned in combination with the Romans as "advisors and perpetrators of the passion" and that the Catechism lays ultimate responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ, not just upon the Jews, but upon humanity's
original sin and the "vices and crimes which people have committed from the beginning of the world to the present day and will go on committing until the end of time." Thus, Isaac, argued, even within the context of Catholic doctrine, it would be possible for the
Holy See to make a statement distancing the Church from preaching the concept of
Jewish deicide (to which Isaac attributed a significant bulk of what he called "
Christian anti-semitism"). Isaac, a French-born Jew, had a long history of activism in regard to Jewish ethno-religious concerns, tracing back to the
Dreyfus affair when he was a teenager. Leading up to the
Second World War, he had been part of the left-wing group
CVIA and after the war he had founded, along with
Jacob Kaplan,
Edmond Fleg and other French-born Jews, the
Amitié Judéo-chrétienne de France on 26 February 1948. This was following on from the
Seelisberg Conference of the
International Council of Christians and Jews (originally an American-British initiative) a year earlier at which Isaac had been a key speaker. Through several works,
Jesus and Israel (1946), the
Genesis of Anti-Semitism (1948) and
The Teaching of Contempt (1962)—the latter published at the start of Vatican II—Isaac had laid out his central thesis that, the "most dangerous form of anti-semitism is
Christian anti-semitism", which he treats not as a peripheral anomaly, but inherent in its origins, from
the Passion as described by the
Four Evangelists in the Gospels, through the Church Fathers to the present day. Isaac's solution to this was that Christianity must "amend" its beliefs, expunge from its doctrines any "teachings of contempt" which present Rabbinic Judaism as rejected or inferior and adopt a new relationship with Jews. John XXIII had created the
Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (SECU), a few days before his meeting with Isaac on 5 June 1960. of the
American Jewish Committee at Rome in 1961, inviting them to submit a memorandum on anti-Jewish elements in Catholic textbooks and liturgy. The AJC responded to the SECU with two documents: "The Image of the Jew in Catholic Teaching" by Judith Banki The document was completed in November 1961. In a meeting in
New Delhi in December 1961, the
World Council of Churches issued an explicit proclamation in which they stated "the historic events which led to the Crucifixion should not be so presented as to fasten upon the Jewish people of today responsibilities which belong to our corporate humanity." The polemics intensified, as Egyptian media outlets such as
Al Gomhuria argued that Bea's ancestral name was "
Behar" and that he was of Jewish ancestry. The Jewish ancestry of Oesterreicher and Baum was also highlighted as proof of a supposed "
Zionist plot". ,
New Jersey in the United States, where
Decretum de Iudaeis was drafted in 1961. Jewish convert and Vatican II
peritus,
John M. Oesterreicher, founded the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies here in 1953. The initial drafting of
Decretum de Iudaeis by the SECU was completed in November 1961. The actual text of the document was four paragraphs long. Much of the first paragraph was uncontroversial to all factions, as it highlighted the continuity of the Catholic Church with the
Patriarchs and
Prophets of Israel before the coming of Jesus Christ and the nature of the Church as the spiritual continuation of ancient Israel's covenant with the
god of
Abraham (the only criticism conservative elements had of this was the relevance of Old Covenant Judaism to a document on relations with modern
Talmud-centered
Rabbinic Judaism). Much of the controversy over the actual text of
Decretum de Iudaeis, was based on interpretations of
Romans 11, which was used as justification for the line "it would be an injustice to call this people accursed, since they are greatly beloved for the sake of the Fathers and the promises made to them." Contrary to
Matthew 27, which mentioned a
blood curse, traditionally highlighted by many
Church Fathers and
Doctors of the Church. The text, also referencing
Romans 11, broached
eschatological themes in regard to the eventual union of Jews with the Church. This new interpretation of
Romans 11 had been developed by
Karl Thieme (a longtime correspondent of John M. Oesterreicher, one of the main SECU
periti and drafters under Bea), a pioneer in
Catholic-Jewish interfaith dialogue since the late 1930s and a contributor to
Gertrud Luckner's
Freiburger Rundbrief. Within five days of Wardi's "appointment", Cardinal
Amleto Giovanni Cicognani as Secretary of the Central Preparatory Commission removed the
Decretum de Iudaeis schema from the agenda (as
Cardinal Secretary of State, he was particularly sensitive to diplomatic issues), never to be presented in this form to the council as a whole. Associated with
Conservative Judaism, was involve the
American civil rights movement and protested against the
Vietnam War. His memorandum on behalf ofd the American Jewish Committee, entitled "On Improving Catholic–Jewish Relations", had a significant influence on proceedings of Bea's Secretariat. The meeting in New York had also been attended by Bea's Secretary Msgr.
Johannes Willebrands and Fr. Felix Morlion, president of Rome's Pro Deo University. dialogued closely with Cardinal Bea on the development of the document. He was selected by the
American Jewish Committee to represent the position of Judaism. The main aims of Heschel had been to encourage the alteration of the Catholic presentation of Jewish responsibility in regard to the
trial and
crucifixion of Jesus Christ (what is sometimes known as
Jewish deicide). These teachings had passed down through the
Gospels, many
Church Fathers,
Doctors of the Church and
Ecumenical Councils over numerous centuries. In addition to this, Paul VI was due to visit the
Holy Places in
East Jerusalem (then held by the
Kingdom of Jordan) on 4 January 1964, whereby he would be meeting with Orthodox Patriarch
Athenagoras I of Constantinople, with the
ecumenical goal of mending the schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
Albert Gregory Meyer, Richard Cushing and Francis Spellman were particularly insistent on supporting the Jewish position, as were Archbishop
Patrick O'Boyle and Bishop
Stephen Aloysius Leven; they also had the support of the
Catholic Media Association. and stated at the podium; "It is clear that Christians love Jews, for such is the law of Christians, but Jews should be exhorted to cease hating us and regarding us as contemptible animals." As ever, Catholic leaders from the Arab world also spoke out against any document focusing exclusively on the Jews without any mention of the Muslims, including: Cardinal Patriarch
Ignatius Gabriel I Tappouni of the
Syriac Catholic Church, Patriarch
Maximos IV Saigh and Bishop
Joseph Tawil of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and Archbishop
Pietro Sfair of the
Maronite Church. Sfair was instrumental during the drafting of the
Second Vatican Council document
Nostra Aetate to highlight the
House of Mary (in Ephesus, Turkey) and Marian devotion as a matter of shared interest between Christians and Muslims. Archbishop P. Sfair of the Maronite Rite (Rome) considered the reference which the declaration
De non christianis made to the Muslims'adoration of the one and remunerating God as insufficient. Mention should also be made of Mohammed's affirmation of the virginal conception and birth of Christ through Mary, the most exalted among women. The Archbishop recalled the respect with which the earliest Muslims treated the Christians and the Christian beliefs. He insisted that the declaration should give greater consideration to that which the Muslims believed, to the truths which they proposed for belief, than to their less essential cultural factors. The combined liberalising factions; headed up by the Rhineland Alliance and the American Cardinals; held different approaches, with ultimately the same goal in mind. One group, consisting of Cardinals Joseph Ritter of St. Louis, Albert Gregory Meyer of Chicago,
Franz König of Vienna and Achille Liénart of Lille (supported by Bishops
Elchinger and
Méndez Arceo) took to the podium and spoke clearly against the "watered down" Paul VI-Cicognani revision and supported a full return to the previous draft authored by Cardinal Bea and the SECU, with the repudiation of the deicide theme against Jews of any generation clearly included. The liberals, drawn from the Rhineland Alliance and the American Cardinals, arranged a memorandum to be issued to the Pope to protest this in the strongest terms. A gathering took place at the residence of Cardinal
Josef Frings of Cologne, where a number of other Cardinals added their voice to the petition. Supporters of the Frings motion explicitly named by the media included longtime interested parties Cardinals Ritter, Meyer, König, Liénart and Lercaro, along with Cardinals
Raúl Silva Henríquez of Chile,
Julius Döpfner of Munich,
Joseph-Charles Lefèbvre of Bourges,
Bernardus Johannes Alfrink of Utrecht and
Leo Joseph Suenens of Brussels. This was highly significant as it included three out of four Moderators of the Second Vatical Council (only the Eastern Catholic Moderator, Cardinal Gregorio Pietro Agagianian, did not sign up to it). They wanted the return of the Jewish document and the document on religious liberty to the SECU, they wanted to complain that the conservative minority were already able to "water down" some of the more radical elements in documents that had already been voted on and they were opposed to delaying the Council any further (rumours had abounded that Paul VI wanted to delay the council as it stood for three years, so the subjects covered could mature for a Fourth Session). With this memorandum in hand, the leader of the faction, Cardinal Frings held a meeting with Paul VI on 13 November 1964 to express the concerns of the liberal Council fathers. A few weeks later on
Passion Sunday, Paul VI himself, within the sermon during Mass in Rome, spoke of the role played by Jews of the time in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (to the disappointment of
Elio Toaff, the Chief Rabbi of Rome). With the final vote approaching on 14 October 1965, both Jewish and Arab lobbies doubled-down and pushed for their agendas: Shuster of the AJC wanted the "weakening" of the document completely reversed, while a final 28-page Arab request was submitted, urging the Catholic Bishops to save the faith from “communism and atheism and the
Jewish-Communist alliance." While the form of the final document to be put to the floor at the Fourth Session of the Second Vatican Council had been disappointing to Shuster and Lichten of the AJC and B’nai B’rith respectively, Higgins convinced them that it was better to "settle for what they could get." Bishop
Stephen Aloysius Leven gave some false hope to his friends in the American Jewish community that the American bishops could still vote against the new version but upon realising that this would simply add votes to the Arab & conservative side who wanted no document at all, the tactic was abandoned. By this point, even Cardinal Bea was content for the "deicide" issue to be dropped so long as the document was finally promulgated. Fr.
René Laurentin, also wrote a late plea to strengthen the Jewish aspect of the document, but by now momentum was against further revisions. In its final form, 1,763 voted in favour of the document and 250 bishops opposed it. It was subsequently promulgated on 28 October 1965 by Pope Paul VI as
Nostra aetate ("In our time"). The media in the United States and Europe subsequently ran with sensationalistic headlines such as "Vatican Pardons Jews" and "Jews Exonerated in Rome", despite the fact that the deicide issue had now been removed from the document. Meanwhile, diplomatic statements were prepared by the AJC and B'nai B'rith, which tried to focus on what they saw as the positives while also airing their disappointment that some of the biggest issues had been dropped and the document much watered down from previous versions. The most vocal critic was Rabbi Heschel, who described avoiding dealing with the deicide issue as “an act of paying homage to
Satan.” ==Opposition==