In dialogue

THE INCARNATION OF GOD ASKS CHRISTIANS NOT TO CONSIDER ANY ASPECT OF MATTER AS EXTRANEOUS TO THEIR SPIRITUAL LIFE. Material is spiritual, the Fathers said: it is the concrete life of each individual that demonstrates faith.
But history is also concrete matter; human history, as it unfolds, is a search for meaning and an object of meditation. It is the history of the community that is, in its concreteness, the Body of Christ: the Church. On October 25, 2025, a conference in Camaldoli commemorated the 60th anniversary of the declaration Nostra Aetate. This document of the Second Vatican Council marked a revolution in the relationship between Catholics and other religions, especially Judaism and Islam.
Even if superficially, it is important to recall some passages of the concrete application of Nostra Aetate towards the Jews from the pontificate of Paul VI to the present. Pope Montini's Novus Ordo Missae, 1962 and 1969, marked the first step in a concrete dialogue: lex orandi is lex credendi—one believes what one prays. In the new Mass, the Good Friday prayer was abolished, as were the references to the "perfidious Jews," and the prayer for "the conversion of the Jews," which became "for the Jews." This meant that truth could only be attained within one's own faith, autonomously. Not only did Pope Montini abolish the negative, he also established the positive, a joint commission for joint work between Jews and Christians.

IN APRIL 1986, JOHN PAUL II VISITED THE SYNAGOGUE IN ROME and called the Jews "beloved elder brothers," a phrase that made a profound impression on the Jewish people. In 1993, the Holy See and the State of Israel took a major step toward mutual recognition, with an exchange of diplomatic representations. During the Jubilee of 2000, however, the document on the Holocaust disappointed many. Concerned about the fracturing of the Church's unity, Benedict XVI revokes the excommunication of the Lefebvrists and reintroduces the possibility of the Tridentine rite, modifying only the Good Friday prayer. In 2021, Francis returns to the issue of the rite: Mass can be celebrated with the rite of the 1960s only if the bishops allow it and provided it is not used against the council.
He opens the Vatican archives to allow historians access to previously secret documents, visits Israel, and meets with both Perez and Abbas.

IN 2015, A WHOLE 10 YEARS AGO (as Cardinal Parolin recalls), the Holy See recognized the State of Palestine. In Francis's first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Bergoglio addresses the complex problem of "replacement theology" and points to Scripture as the solution: the work of interpretation, which never ends, occurs throughout history, with contributions that can lead to a new understanding of the Word.

NEVERTHELESS, MANY ISSUES REMAIN UNEXPRESSED. This is also because the category of anti-Semitism changed after October 7th.
The problem of the close connection between land and religion/Word in Judaism remains, while in post-conciliar Catholic theology there has been a clear separation between the religious and political spheres.
Because there are so many necessary peaces to work towards today.
Dialogue, for Christians, always goes to the root of the problem. It's not just an intellectual quest: it's a moral and social imperative, especially in a difficult global moment like the one we're experiencing. As the Talmud reminds us, nothing moves from the Heavens above unless it first moves from the earth below.

Flaminia Morandi
NP January 2026