More from the Talmudic Rabbi Noam E. Marans, director of interreligious and intergroup relations for the AJC

"Francis is the first pope to rise within a Catholic Church transformed through the revolutionary 1965 Nostra Aetate and subsequent teachings, which have moved to right two millennia of Catholic enmity towards Jews and Judaism. Pope Francis, a friend of the Jewish people who has reflected on the horrors of the Holocaust and Christian complicity, would not knowingly be callous toward Jewish sensitivities. Rather than expressing syncretism, he is simply moved by the most instinctual Christian image of suffering — Jesus on the cross — as a means to identify with Jewish suffering. And he is not afraid to express that in a post-Nostra Aetate era."

"Nostra Aetate has been liberating for both Christians and Jews. It has enabled Christianity to advance beyond its burdensome past regarding Jews and Judaism. And it represents for Jews the possibility that Christianity would no longer threaten their security and well-being. For creative Jewish religious thinkers, it facilitated consideration of a positive role for Christianity in the divine plan.

Although it was not the first Christian attempt at self-reflection after the Holocaust, Nostra Aetate became the gold standard by which all others would be measured."

The Future of Catholic-Jewish Relations Under Pope Francis

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