DECLARATION
ISNET Homepage | MEDIA Homepage | Program Kerja | Koleksi | Anggota
DECLARATION ON THE RELATION OF
THE CHURCH TO NON-CHRISTIAN
RELIGIONS - NOSTRA AETATE
PAUL, BISHOP
SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
TOGETHER WITH THE FATHERS OF THE SACRED COUNCIL
FOR EVERLASTING MEMORY
In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer
together, and the ties between different peoples are
becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her
relationship to non-Christian religions. In her tasks of
promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations,
she considers above all in this declaration what men have in
common and what draws them to fellowship.
One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for
God made the whole human race to live over the face of the
earth (1). One also is their final goal, God. His
providence, His manifestations of goodness, His saving
design extend to all men (2), until that time when the elect
will be united in the Holy City, the city ablaze with the
glory of God, where the nations will walk in His light (3).
Men expect from the various religions answers to the
unsolved riddles of the human condition, which today, even
as in former times, deeply stir the hearts of men: What is
man? What is the meaning, the aim of our life? What is moral
good, what sin? Whence suffering and what purpose does it
serve? Which is the road to true happiness? What are death,
judgement and retribution after death? What, finally is the
ultimate inexpressible mystery which encompasses our
existence: whence do we come, and where are we going?
2. From ancient times down to the present, there is found
among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden
power which hovers over the course of things and over the
events of human history; at times some indeed have come to
the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father.
This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with
a profound religious sense.
Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced
culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means
of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus
in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express
it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through
searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the
anguish of our human condition either through ascetical
practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with
love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms,
realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world;
it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident
spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect
liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through
higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions
found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the
human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways,"
comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites.
The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in
these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those
ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings
which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she
holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of
that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she 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 (4).
The Church therefore, exhorts her sons, that through
dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other
religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness
to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve
and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as
the socio-cultural values found among these men.
3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They
adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself,
merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth
(5), who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit
wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as
Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes great pleasure
in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not
acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They
also honour Mary, His virgin mother; at times they even call
on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of
judgement when God will render their deserts to all those
who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value
the moral life and worship God especially through prayer,
alms-giving and fasting.
Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and
hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this
Sacred Synod urges all to forget the past and to work
sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well
as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social
justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.
4. As the Sacred Synod searches into the mystery of the
Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the
people of the New Covenant to Abraham's stock.
Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to
God's saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her
election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and
the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ
-- Abraham's sons according to faith (6) -- are included in
the same Patriarch's call, and likewise that the salvation
of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen
people's exodus from the land of bondage. The Church,
therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of
the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His
inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can
she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that
well- cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the
wild shoots, the Gentiles (7). Indeed, the Church believes
that by His cross Christ Our Peace reconciled Jews and
Gentiles, making both one in Himself (8).
The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about
his kinsmen: "There is the sonship and the glory and the
covenants and the law and the worship and the promises;
theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according
to the flesh" (Rom. 8, 4-5), the Son of the Virgin Mary. She
also recalls that the Apostles, the Church's main-stay and
pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who
proclaimed Christ's Gospel to the world, sprang from the
Jewish people.
As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the
time of her visitation (9), nor did the Jews, in large
number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its
spreading (10). Nevertheless God holds the Jews most dear
for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the
gifts He makes or of the calls He issues -- such is the
witness of the Apostle (11). In company with the Prophets
and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to
God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a
single voice and "serve him shoulder to shoulder" (Soph. 3,
9) (12).
Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews
is thus so great, this Sacred Synod wants to foster and
recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the
fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as
well as fraternal dialogues.
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. Although the Church is the new People of God, the
Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God,
as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see
to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching
of the Word of God they do not teach anything that does not
conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.
Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against
any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares
with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the
Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions,
displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time
and by anyone.
Besides, as the Church has always held and holds now, Christ
underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins
of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach
salvation. It is, therefore, the burden of the Church's
preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of
God's all-embracing love and as the fountain from which
every grace flows.
5. We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we
refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is
in the image of God. Man's relation to God the Father and
his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that
Scripture says: "He who does not love does not know God" (1
John 4, 8).
No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice
that leads to discrimination between man and the man or
people and people, so far as their human dignity and the
rights flowing from it are concerned.
The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any
discrimination against men or harassment of them because of
their race, colour, condition of life, or religion. On the
contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles
Peter and Paul, this Sacred Synod ardently implores the
Christian faithful to "maintain good fellowship among the
nations" (1 Peter 2, 12), and, if possible to live for their
part in peace with all men (14), so that they many truly be
sons of the Father who is in heaven (15).
The entire text and all the individual elements which have
been set forth in this Declaration have pleased the Fathers.
And by the Apostolic power conferred on us by Christ, we,
together with the Venerable Fathers, in the Holy Spirit,
approve, decree and enact them; and we order that what has
been thus enacted in Council be promulgated, to the glory of
God.
Rome, at St. Peter's, 28 October, 1965.
I, PAUL, Bishop of the Catholic Church
There follow the signatures of the Fathers.
Footnotes:
(1) Cf. Acts 17, 26
(2) Cf. Wis. 8, 1; Acts 14, 17; Rom. 2, 6-7; 1 Tim 2, 4.
(3) Cf. Apoc. 21, 23f.
(4) Cf 2 Cor. 5, 18-19.
(5) Cf St. Gregory VII, Letter XXI to Anzir (Nacir),
King of Mauritania (PL 148, col 450 f.)
(6) Cf. Gal. 3, 7.
(7) Cf. Rom. 11, 17-24.
(8) Cf. Eph. 2, 14-16.
(9) Cf. Luke 19, 44.
(10) Cf. Rom. 11, 28.
(11) Cf. Rom 11, 28-29; cf Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen
Gentium (Light of Nations), AAS, 55 (1965), p. 20.
(12) Cf Is. 66, 23; Ps 65, 4: Rom. 11, 11-32.
(13) Cf. John 19, 6.
(14) Cf. Rom. 12, 18.
(15) Cf. Matt. 5, 45.
ISNET Homepage | MEDIA Homepage | Program Kerja | Koleksi | Anggota