The Australian Catholic Bishops have launched a new document to highlight Christianity’s unique relationship with Judaism and to celebrate the positive relationship the two faiths enjoy in Australia.
Walking Together: Catholics and Jews in the Australian Context comes 30 years after the Bishops Conference published a set of guidelines and recommendations to enhance Catholic-Jewish relations.
That document built on the foundations of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
Bishop Michael McKenna, chair of the Bishops Commission for Christian Unity and Inter-Religious Dialogue, said Walking Together “aims to help Catholics understand more deeply the uniqueness of our relationship with Judaism, our elder sisters and brothers in faith”.
President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Jillian Segal AO, delivered the Jewish Community response. “Walking Together bears eloquent testimony to the intimacy of the connection between Judaism and Christianity,” she said.
Ms Segal said the document affirms “the essential Jewishness of Jesus and the fact that he prayed and worshipped as a Jew; the ongoing, irrevocable nature of the covenant between God and the Jewish people; and the fact that Jesus and the Pharisees were in alignment, not in opposition, to one another”.
Bishop McKenna said the document’s launch, followed by a kosher lunch, allowed for a deepening of the Catholic-Jewish relationship, which he says has “a long and good history”.
“Since Vatican II, which renewed and clarified the Catholic understanding of our relationship, our friendship and mutual help has grown,” he said.
Jeremy Jones, co-chair and foundation member of the Annual Conversations between the Bishops Commission and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, underlined that friendship in a vote of thanks at the launch event.
“It is not often that we witness seismic changes in relations between two communities, but it is no exaggeration to describe the present era of Catholic-Jewish relations as a Golden Age, after a history of too many Dark Ages,” said Mr Jones.
“The positive, meaningful contact and mutual respect is unprecedented.”
Mr Jones called Walking Together “a cry from the heart and a call for action”.
The document acknowledges some of the challenges in Catholic-Jewish relations in the past, but also proposes ways to continue to heal the wounds that were created.
The Catholic community response to Walking Together was delivered by Dr Teresa Pirola, ThD, a Sydney-based Catholic faith educator who specialises in studies of the Torah. If you would like to learn more about the Torah and traditions of Jewish people, check out ‘Light of Torah: Christians learning from Jews and Judaism’, a website established by Teresa offering a breadth of educational resources.
“Christianity is grounded in Judaism as a plant is rooted in the earth. As Christians we acknowledge that we cannot live apart from the soil in which we are planted. Further, we recognise Judaism as a ‘living tradition’, to which Christians can turn as a deep well of knowledge, and Jewish communities as vital dialogue partners. This website models what this can mean in practice. The resources are created by a Catholic listening to Jewish tradition and pondering its wisdom for her own Catholic life and faith.”
Visit the Light of Torah website to explore the riches of the Hebrew Scriptures (‘Old Testament’) through tradition, drawing on Jewish sources from ancient to modern times.
March 21, 2023
