The Vatican’s chief official in charge of relations with the Jews has vowed that the Catholic Church would not reverse its historic declaration ‘Nostra Aetate’ of 1965 which forms the basis of its outreach efforts to other religions. Cardinal Kurt Koch told the Italian religious news service SIR that the church. “The Catholic Church will not go back on the Nostra Aetate declaration because it cannot call the [Second Vatican] Council into question; this is unthinkable,” Koch, the president of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, said.
His statement was made ahead of the Day of Jewish-Christian Dialogue which will be celebrated across Italy on 17 January. The Swiss cardinal responded openly to “concerns” triggered by the dialogue process between the Holy See and the breakaway Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). “Jews are our elder brothers: Christians and Jews are inseparable, especially in [Pope] Benedict XVI’s vision of the unity between the two testaments,” he pointed out.
Koch went on to say that the only group that did not accept the declaration was the SSPX. “As such, they do not accept ecumenical dialogue, relations with Jews or religious freedom. But these are central to the Holy Father’s teaching and if a group does not accept the Council and does not accept a magisterium, they need to ask themselves how they see themselves as Catholic. This is the fundamental problem,” he declared. Referring to recent remarks by the SSPX head Bishop Bernard Fellay, Koch reiterated that “any form of anti-Semitism is contrary to Christianity, and the Catholic Church must do all that is in its power to stop this.”
