For the Catholic Church, interreligious dialogue “is not a tactic or a tool, but a way of life — a journey of the heart that transforms everyone involved, the one who listens and the one who speaks,” Pope Leo XIV said.
Dialogue is a journey that people walk “not by abandoning our own faith but by standing firmly within it,” he said. “For authentic dialogue begins not in compromise, but in conviction — in the deep roots of our own beliefs that give us the strength to reach out to others in love.”
Pope Leo made the remarks Oct. 28 at a nighttime celebration marking the 60th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate,” the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on relations with Judaism, Islam and other world religions.
The original document, signed by St. Paul VI was placed on the stage in the Vatican audience hall for the event, along with an oil lamp from Assisi and an olive tree, a symbol of peace.
At the beginning of the event, more than 80 representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism and African Traditional Religions filed into the hall behind a Sri Lankan Buddhist dance troupe and accompanied by children from an Italian choir.
Many of the leaders had personally greeted Pope Leo earlier in the evening at Rome’s Colosseum where they took part in a meeting of religions for peace sponsored by the Community of Sant’Egidio. About 400 of the 3,000 people in attendance were scholars participating in a three-day conference on “Nostra Aetate” at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.
In his remarks, Pope Leo noted how the declaration began as a treatise “describing a new relationship between the Catholic Church and Judaism. We can say, therefore, that the fourth chapter, dedicated to Judaism, is the heart and generative core of the entire declaration.”
“For the first time in the history of the church, we have a doctrinal text with an explicitly theological basis that illustrates the Jewish roots of Christianity in a well-founded biblical manner,” the pope said. “At the same time, Nostra Aetate takes a firm stand against all
