Fifty years ago, cardinals, bishops, and theologians drafted a document – Nostra Aetate – that become the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religion. The Catholic Church wanted the document to express its desire for friendship and conversation with Jews, Muslims and people of other religious traditions. Thanks to the adoption of this critically important document, as well as the efforts of leaders from a variety of world faiths, tri-lateral discussions have been fostered between and among Jews, Muslims and Christians.
On Wednesday, January 15, the Anti-Defamation League hosted a special panel of three interfaith scholars at the first Board meeting of 2014. The panel experts discussed how people of faith speak to each other and where the tri-lateral relations stand today. Panel experts included Dr. Philip Cunningham, the Director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at Saint Joseph’s University and Professor of Theology in the University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, who has been a member of the advisory committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations for the United States Conference for Catholic Bishops. Also on the panel, Rabbi David Straus, the Senior Rabbi at Main Line Reform Temple-Beth Elohim in Wynnewood, PA, who is the immediate past president of the Philadelphia Board of Rabbis and the current Chair of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council. Rounding out the esteemed panel was Manar Darwish, an Islamic scholar and instructor at Bryn Mawr College, who has taught Islamic and gender studies and the media and culture of Middle Eastern countries. It was a lively and enlightening exchange, which illuminated the importance of, and challenges for, interfaith discussion today.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and discrimination. Click to learn more about ADL’s Interfaith initiatives and programs.