[Unofficial translation from Shalom, published by the Jewish Community of Rome: Commento a "Un Cammino di Speranza"]
In a joint note by three Vatican dicasteries, a document has been published, entitled "A Journey of Hope" on interreligious dialogue, sixty years after the conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate. The note focuses on significant and important paragraphs on the dialogue with the Jews and is worthy of attention and comment on various points.
The date: the document was approved by the pope on June 22, 2026, and publication took place on September 16, 2026. The sixty years of Nostra Aetate fell in October 2025, therefore, compared to previous custom, there is a certain delay in the publication of the document, which is perhaps explained by the beginning of the new pontificate.
The joint signatures of three dicasteries are also a certain novelty with respect to a series of previous documents that concerned Jewish-Christian dialogue and that were produced by the only dicastery (that of Christian unity) that dealt with Jews. In reality, Nostra Aetate, even if it is better known for its fourth section which speaks of the Jews, is a document also dedicated to other religions; therefore, there is a certain logic in taking up a broader discourse, even if one might feel there is a relativization and downsizing of the relationship with Judaism.
The significant points of the note are: the emphasis on the specificity of the uniqueness of dialogue with the Jews, the reprise of many significant statements by popes and documents that speak of the common spiritual patrimony that gives dialogue a foundation [that is] "theological and not simply an expression of our desire for mutual respect and esteem," the Jewishness of Jesus ("forever"), the irrevocable covenant of the Jews with God, the importance for Christians of the religiosity of today's Jews, the "not being able to do without one another," the fight against antisemitism.
The note does not hide the difficulties of Jewish-Christian dialogue in recent years, following October 7, 2023 (not cited): "Many bridges of communication have faltered and continue to be put to the test due to the different reading of the events that have taken place, often not unambiguous even within the respective religious communities." "However," the note continues, "the pillars of the dialogue between believers, built up in sixty years of common work, have remained firm. It is possible and necessary to build on them, drawing inspiration again from the recommendations of the Council Fathers to grow in mutual knowledge and esteem 'especially through biblical and theological studies and fraternal dialogue.'"
From this statement of good will, and its limitations, we can start to examine some critical issues of the note. From a theological point of view, the note makes it very clear that, with all due respect to Judaism, "This does not mean for Christians that there are two ways of salvation and that the covenant with the Jewish people is parallel to the Christian way of salvation: the Church teaches that Christ is the only redeemer." This is an old topic of discussion within Christianity and related to dialogue, which could have been resolved theologically in a different way. It is necessary to take note of the firmness of the position and in its light to specify that once the idea of the only [means of] salvation meant that there were no alternatives to the [need for the] conversion of the Jews, which was actively sought, otherwise they would not have been saved; in more recent times it has come to be said – I express this concept in very simplified terms – that thanks to Jesus the Jews are saved even if they do not believe in it and are not aware of it. A tolerable position to the extent that it does not turn into conversionist pressure, as it once was, which would completely explode the good intentions of dialogue. A pressure that at least in the official documents does not seem to be there, but which from some indications never seems to have completely subsided.
The emphasis on "biblical and theological studies" as a concrete horizon of dialogue hides something else: the difficulty of tackling the complexity of the Jewish reality, which in the note is faith, religious identity, transmission of the divine Word. But the Jews are also a nation, a history (not only of persecution) and in their identity there is a tormented, but always present, relationship with a land, never mentioned in the note. A land in which half of the Jewish people live today. And then the Jewish reality has an ancient name, Israel (which does not yet mean the State of Israel) and it is striking that in this document, apart from a single mention of the "Israelites," this name never appears. The words of Psalm 83:5 come to mind: "Let the name of Israel be remembered no more." There is almost a nostalgia for when the Church made polemical and substitute use of it (Verus Israel or Novus Israel) but at least cited it. Why this reticence? Curiously, in contrast, it is said that "Jesus is fully a man of his time and of his first-century Palestinian Jewish milieu." It is a quote from a 1985 document, but today a Palestinian Jesus sounds strange.
Certainly, if professors of the Holy Scriptures of different backgrounds discuss together about a complicated text, this is dialogue; just as the writing of doctrinal documents and their commentary is dialogue. But what is missing is another and more important dialogue, the one that involves the people, the different "flocks," more or less faithful, with their "pastors," more or less valid. If there is a lack of willingness to understand the identity of the other, with his or her problems and difficulties, as is the case in recent years, and as this note seems to testify, the desired "journey of hope" struggles to start.
