October 28th of this year marks the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the Second Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (in particular, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism). As a non-Catholic scholar of religious studies teaching at Catholic universities, I continue to discover the importance of this document each semester in my classrooms.

First, without question each semester I have at least one Catholic student who either professes in class or in writing something akin to, “I had no idea that my church teaches this!” with the implication that they understood the Roman Catholic Church to profess a strict doctrine of damnation of all non-Catholic, and certainly non-Christian, traditions.  These instances alone are enough to convince me this document ought to be taught on a regular basis.

Second, and this only reinforces the first, it seems that Islamophobia is on the rise – and among Catholics in the classroom as well. Competing with the oversimplified narratives of religion trumpeted by the media (and not just the Fox News’s of the world) is exhausting and can be downright stifling. The sheer amount of misinformation and conflation of religion with geopolitics (which can be done appropriately, accurately, and responsibly) shows up in the classroom via talking-point laden barbs confidently thrown out by students, both Catholic and non-Catholic. Returning to Nostra Aetate often can help control this conversation, even if just to remind ourselves that the Church strives to foster “mutual understanding and respect” and reproves “any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion.” Further, drawing on the words of the writer of 1 Peter 2:12, Nostra Aetate calls “the Christian faithful to ‘maintain good fellowship among the nations’, and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men, so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.”

Third, teaching the document does not go without critique and challenge. It offers the opportunity to set the document in its context: the 1960s were very different than our 21st century context. This recognition alone can help ease the concerns of my students who think the document didn’t go far enough and is still, for their tastes, too inclusive and not pluralistic enough. Leaving aside the conversation about an adequate Christian theology of religions for this essay, I want to recognize here that the students’ concerns are not off base.  Rather, they open an opportunity to be critical of the document in a constructive manner. For instance, it is not unusual for many students to put their finger on the line from the document that reads, “True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.” There is little concern with the latter clause of the sentence, but the initial claim that ties the Jewish authorities to the death of Christ still remains problematic. Many students know all too well that most historians point to the Roman authorities as the most likely culprits to blame for putting Jesus to death, and language like this in a Vatican document only potentially furthers the danger of anti-Semitism. Of course, Jewish responses to this concern are well-documented.

Nostra Aetate is by no means a perfect a document, but was most certainly a watershed moment in the Church for Catholics – and non-Catholics. I will continue to teach it for the reasons stated above and many more. There are still obvious challenges with the document. Perhaps soon the Church will revisit its approach to other religious in the spirit of aggiornamento and respond to some of these challenges. The pace of interreligious encounter and religious multi-culturalism has been so rapid in our world that the number of questions, issues, and complexities have risen sharply. For instance, cases of multiple religious identity (multiple belonging and/or multiple participation) might be addressed in future documents. Additionally, Nostra Aetate only mentions four non-Christian traditions. It may be an appropriate time for the Church to now recognize and respond to these other religions which include certainly the great indigenous traditions of the world, Sikhism, and many others.