Catholic Church and Judaism
The Catholic Church and Judaism have a long and complex history of cooperation and conflict, and have had a strained relationship throughout history, with periods of persecution, violence and discrimination directed towards Jews by Christians, particularly during the Middle Ages.
The Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples may have been to mark to the Jewish feast of Passover. Today, Christians recall the Last Supper in the Mass.
Pope Gregory the Great's 598 Bull wrote of a duty of Christians to protect Jews, which became official Church doctrine.
Pope Francis praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on his 2014 visit to Israel
Nostra aetate, or the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, is an official declaration of the Vatican II, an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. It was promulgated on 28 October 1965 by Pope Paul VI. Its name comes from its incipit, the first few words of its opening sentence, as is tradition. It passed the Council by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops.
Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time (2015), sculpture by Joshua Koffman at the Jesuit-run Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, commemorating Nostra aetate.
John XXIII met with Jules Isaac in 1960, the author of Jésus et Israël. After the meeting he directed the SECU to prepare a document on Catholic-Jewish relations for the Second Vatican Council.
Cardinal Augustin Bea oversaw the drafting of Nostra aetate by his periti as the President of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.
Seton Hall University, New Jersey in the United States, where Decretum de Iudaeis was drafted in 1961. Jewish convert and Vatican II periti, John M. Oesterreicher, founded the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies here in 1953.