The following comes from an October 27 Santa Clara University press release:
Fifty years ago on October 28, Pope Paul VI issued a proclamation Nostra Aetate (In Our Time) at the Second Vatican Council, opening up the relationship of Catholics to non-Christian religions. The document called for mutual understanding, respect, and fraternal dialogue across religious traditions.
To mark the anniversary, Santa Clara University President Michael E. Engh, S.J., has signed a statement with four other faith leaders – San Jose Catholic Bishop Patrick McGrath, Rabbi James Greene of the Cantorial and Rabbinic Association of Greater San Jose; Rev. D. Andrew Kille of Silicon Valley Interreligious Council; and Jyl Jurman of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley.
The statement is below:
October 27, 2015
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, Santa Clara University, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose, the Cantorial and Rabbinic Association of Greater San Jose, Silicon Valley Interreligious Council, and the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley join together in celebrating this milestone for interfaith relationships, and commit to continued partnership and dialogue as friends and colleagues. Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and those of non-Christian religions, calls for mutual understanding, respect, and fraternal dialogue across religious traditions. Over the last few years we have hosted many joint programs and initiatives to celebrate and deepen our common understanding and mutual responsibility. We are marking this anniversary by joining Pope Francis’ call for a moral response to climate change and urging our communities to work together to care for our common home.
Reverend Michael E. Engh, S.J.
President, Santa Clara University
Most Reverend Patrick J. McGrath
Bishop, Diocese of San Jose
Rabbi James Greene
Chair, Cantorial and Rabbinic Association of Greater San Jose
Reverend D. Andrew Kille
Chair, Silicon Valley Interreligious Council
Jyl Jurman
CEO, Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley
Thank goodness this agreement didn’t rally and bring in the pagan god religions e.g., Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, Wickens, and etc. But lets look at the quoted words of Nostra Aetate:
“Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and those of non-Christian religions, calls for mutual understanding, respect, and fraternal dialogue across religious traditions.”
What is the value of mutually understanding, respecting, and fraternal dialogue? Does anyone think the 3 persons in the Blessed Trinity would agree? This counters and breaks God’s 1st Commandment. Nothing is in these words about converting lost souls to Catholicism! God did tell His Apostles to go out to the ends of the world preaching to all nations His Holy Gospel in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He intended this for the salvation of mankinds soul.
Nostra Aetate is the work of those liberals/heretics/progressives who hate the teachings of the Catholic Church. It has always been very simple. There is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. Just like there is no Communion for the divorced and remarried if there has not been an annulment. There is no changing of Church doctrine. Yet, like the bishops in Germany pushing for the weakening of Church doctrine, heretical ideas are the ones endorsed by the papal office. A document like Nostra Aetate with all of its heresy and errors would never have got off the ground under Pope Pius X and other popes who upheld the timeless teachings of the Church and did not possess the urge to introduce novelty after novelty.
Nostra Aetate. (10/28/1965), 50 years ago this past week: It states its purpose so that “…The Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions…”
It then makes a fundamental error in assessment, that this is the same goal of all religious faiths:
“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. One also is their final goal, God. His providence, His manifestations of goodness, His saving design extend to all men, 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.”
This final goal, God’s “saving design” is not the final goal of…
….is not the final goal of the Muslims, nor of secular atheist “Christians” and “Jews” (think of Woody Allen), whose goal is to wipe out the Catholic Church once and forever.
In 1965, Congar, Kung and his ilk could afford to be euphoric. At this time, we are staring into the abyss of self-destruction. Wake up.
Anyone done a carbon footprint calculation on a World Youth Day event or a Papal visit?
Why aren’t the liberals arguing against the truths and common sense of Bruce and Clinton? I just hope and pray some lights came on in some of the novus ordo liberals minds for the sake and salvation of their souls.
The joint statement was about as mushy and pointless a statement as I’ve ever read. Hopefully no trees were killed by somebody actually printing it out!
I am glad for one thing here: today, when Vatican II’s many errors are implemented, the chorus is “That’s not what it says..”
Yet the “magisterium” (here, Bishop McGrath, who a few years ago stated in an editorial that the Gospels were not actual historical accounts), when it quotes V2 and embarks on its voyage to indifferentism (based on the false premise noted above in Nostra Aetate, that all religions want the one and same thing), shows the destination of V2’s errors: loss of faith and rudderless relativism of truth.