Pope Francis marked the Oct. 28 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, by stressing how the document remains valid today and has borne good fruit in many initiatives with different religions.

Speaking in the presence of a large number of interreligious representatives in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope recalled that, over the last half century, “there have been many initiatives and examples of institutional or personal relations with non-Christian religions” that emanated from Nostra Aetate (In Our Time).

He noted in particular the meeting in Assisi, Italy, in 1986, promoted by Pope St. John Paul II.

The 1965 declaration sought to help foster dialogue and improved relations between the Church and other religions, including Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism. 

Vatican II was an “extraordinary moment of reflection, dialogue and prayer,” Francis said, and Nostra Aetate was particularly effective in improving Jewish-Catholic relations.

The declaration enabled “indifference and opposition” to turn into “cooperation and benevolence” in the relationship, the Pope remarked during his Oct. 28 general audience in St. Peter’s Square. “From enemies and strangers, we have become friends and brothers.”

“Nostra Aetate showed the way: ‘Yes’ to the rediscovery of the Jewish roots of Christianity; ‘no’ to any form of anti-Semitism and condemnation of any resulting injustice, discrimination and persecution,” the Pope said.

Rabbi David Rosen, international director of interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee, told reporters Oct. 28 the document ushered in a “remarkable new age” and resulted in an “amazing transformation” in Catholic-Jewish relations that “could only succeed because it addressed relations with other religions.”

He noted that if two religious groups, Catholics and Jews, could have had such “bad relations” for 2,000 years but can have “such a wonderful relationship today, with a Pope known as a friend of the Jewish people, then there is no relationship that cannot be transformed and made into [a] blessing.”

The Pope reminded those present that the Church’s openness to dialogue also requires “remaining at the same time faithful to the truth in which she believes, starting from the salvation offered to all that has its origin in Jesus, the sole Savior, and that is worked by the Holy Spirit, as the source of peace and love.”

The declaration is widely considered to have helped the Church to make great strides in interreligious dialogue, but it has not been without its critics. Some believe it has fostered syncretism (the amalgamation of all religions into one) and question whether it has had any effect in helping others to convert to the one, true faith, even if that wasn’t its stated aim.

The Register put these points to representatives of three religions who were taking part in a conference at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University to mark the 50th anniversary of the document.

Swami Chidananda Saraswati, a Hindu representative from India, told reporters Oct. 28 that Nostra Aetate “represents the spirit of Hinduism, where truth is one, and the learned express it in many ways.”

So, according to him, does it, in that case, foster syncretism and relativism? “No, but the document says different religions have rays of truth in them. It uses a mild word,” he told the Register. “It doesn’t say they express the same truth. I take it as a sort of hint, a direction towards accepting one truth expressed in many ways.”

He noted that Nostra Aetate “doesn’t say there is one truth that is expressed by all religions,” but there’s a line that says: “We stay loyal to Christ’s teaching, but we respect other religions for the rays of truth that they have.” The passage in question says the Church “proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ, ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’ (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to himself.”

For Saraswati, the declaration doesn’t make him want to join the Catholic Church, but it has certainly made it easier to dialogue with Catholics. “It definitely generates a great sense of respect and friendship,” he said.

“Let me put it this way,” he added. “I don’t feel a need to go to Christianity, but suppose someone in my village becomes a Catholic: I would say to my friends: ‘Hey, it’s all right; it’s a very good religion.’ Suppose his family members are agitated, and they say: ‘Our son has become a Christian; that’s very bad.’ I would say: ‘What’s bad about it? Christianity is a very good religion; they have noble values.’”

Rasoul Rasoulipour, a Shiite Muslim and director of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue in Teheran, Iran, told reporters that Nostra Aetate was a “Copernican revolution in the history of religions.” It shifted the approach from “concepts to persons, from belief to believers.”

He did not think it fostered relativism and repeated what he had said earlier about changing the focus from beliefs to persons. “Regardless of their doctrines and beliefs, Muslims and Christians are human beings; so, for me, Nostra Aetate is talking about prayer. All pray, all have tears, pain, suffering, so this is the important point.” The declaration, he believes, “brought us from heaven to earth and to see humility, the true human person.”

Asked if it made him want to become Catholic, he replied, “Honestly, on many occasions, I have been called a ‘catholic muslim,’ a ‘mennonite shia,’ so it shows I’m belonging to a movement of ‘small letter’ religions: Islam with a small ‘I’, Catholic with a small ‘c.’”

Dr. Brinder Singh Mahon, a British radiologist representing the Sikh religion at the conference, said the question of relativism was “explored in our faith when it first came about” in the 15th century. For him, humility is what is most important and allows truth to prevail.

He said Nostra Aetate “absolutely” makes him “feel a stronger attraction to the Church,” though it wasn’t clear if it would make him want to convert.

The way the document has developed over time has allowed people “to accept other people’s path to God,” and this is “generally transforming for this world today,” he said. “The fact we can talk equally across the table and understand that we’re all on the same journey can only help, so it’s very heartwarming for us.” 

For Saraswati, what is important is that people who convert to the Church “are seen to be good people.” Then, he said, “I think the village, community, doesn’t have a problem.”

That was the case with Blessed Mother Teresa, he said, who “never made conversion her main plan,” but “she served, and hats off to her.” He said it “supposedly influenced” her successor, Sister Nirmala Joshi, originally a Hindu from predominantly Hindu Nepal, to convert to Catholicism.

Saying that he’d heard of Hindus and Muslims living alongside each other in the Persian Gulf who’d become good friends, he said their “whole attitude to Muslims changed.” There is a “great need for recognizing goodness; there are lots of good Hindus, Christians, Muslims — there is good everywhere, and it’s important to recognize that.”

Perhaps most interesting of all, despite the non-politically correct nature of such a question — whether or not a Church document might make them want to convert — and contrary to conventional wisdom that one should steer away from such a topic, all three representatives were not only happy to answer the question, they were grateful to have been asked.