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Nostra Aetate (Latin: In our Age) is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.^[1]

The first draft, entitled "Decretum de Judaeis" ("Decree on the Jews"), was completed in November 1961, approximately fourteen months after Cardinal Bea was commissioned by Pope John XXIII. This draft essentially went nowhere, never having been submitted to the Council, which opened on 11 October 1962.

Summary of the final text of Nostra Aetate[link]

1. Introduction
2. Hindus, Buddhists, and other religions
3. Muslims
4. Jews
5. Conclusion

• The Declaration begins by describing the unity of the origin of all people, and the fact that they all return to God; hence their final goal is also one. It describes the eternal questions which have dogged men since the beginning, and how the various religious traditions have tried to answer them.

• It mentions some of the answers that Hindus, Buddhists, and members of other faiths have suggested for such philosophical questions. It notes the willingness of the Catholic Church to accept some truths present in other religions in so much as they reflect Catholic teaching and may lead souls to the Christ.

• Part three goes on to say that the Catholic Church regards the Muslims with esteem, and then continues by describing some of the things Islam has in common with Christianity and Catholicism: worship of One God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, Merciful and Omnipotent, Who has spoken to men; the Muslims' respect for Abraham and Mary, and the great respect they have for Jesus, whom they consider to be a Prophet and not God. The synod urged all Catholics and Muslims to forget the hostilities and differences of the past and to work together for mutual understanding and benefit.

• Part four speaks of the bond that ties the people of the 'New Covenant' (Christians) to Abraham's stock (Jews). It states that even though some Jewish authorities and those who followed them called for Jesus' death, the blame for this cannot be laid at the door of all those Jews present at that time, nor can the Jews in our time be held as guilty, thus repudiating an indiscriminate charge of deicide; 'the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God'. The Declaration also decries all displays of antisemitism made at any time by anyone.

• The fifth part states that all men are created in God's image, and that it is contrary to the teaching of the Church to discriminate against, show hatred towards or harass any person or people on the basis of colour, race, religion, condition of life and so on.

Post-Conciliar developments[link]

Nostra Aetate was one of Vatican II's three declarations, the other documents consisting of nine decrees and four constitutions. It was the shortest of the documents and contained few, if any, references to the debates and the rationale that had gone into its making; therefore, the changes to be brought about by the declaration on the Church's Relations with non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, carried implications not fully appreciated at the time.

The 1974 "Guidelines"[link]

To flesh out these implications and ramifications, the Vatican's Commission on Interrelegious Relations with the Jews issued its Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate in late 1974.

The 1985 "Notes"[link]

This was followed by that same body's Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in the Teaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church in 1985. These developments were paralleled by accompanying statements from the U.S. bishops.

Nostra Aetate 40 years on[link]

The above-referenced statements by the Vatican's Commission for Interreligious Relations with the Jews, as well as other developments, including the establishment of more than two dozen centers for Christian-Jewish understanding at Catholic institutions of higher learning in the United States along with the participation by rabbis in seminarian formation training, demonstrate how the church has embraced Nostra Aetate.

The significance of Nostra Aetate as a new starting point in the Church's relations with Judaism, in light of the foregoing, can be appreciated from the vantage point of the passage of forty years. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution acknowledging Nostra Aetate at forty,^[2] and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. also noted this anniversary. This is in addition to the marking of the occasion at the Vatican's Gregorian University itself and at major centers of Christian-Jewish understanding around the United States.

Notes and references[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Pope Paul VI (1965-10-28). Declaration on the relation of the church to non-christian religions - Nostra Aetate. Holy See. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html. Retrieved 2008-12-25. 
• Pope Paul VI (1965-10-28) (in Latin). Declaratio De Ecclesiae Habitudine Ad Religiones Non-Christianas - Nostra Aetate. Holy See. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_lt.html. Retrieved 2008-12-25. 
• Akasheh, Khaled (28 June 2006). "Nostra Aetate 40 Years later: 'Dialogue' Between Christians and Muslims". L'Osservatore Romano: 8. http://www.ewtn.com/library/CHISTORY/chrstnsmslms.HTM. 
• Banki, Judith (2005-12-07). "The Interfaith Story behind Nostra Aetate, transcript of a talk given on the occasion of the observance of the 40th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on January 27, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080127024610/http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/features/details/2005-12-07/view_transcript.php. Retrieved 2008-12-26. 
• Bea s.j., Augustin Cardinal (1967). "The Church and the non-Christian Religions". The Way to Unity After the Council. London: G. Chapman. OCLC 956846. 
• Serafian, Michael, The Pilgrim: Pope Paul VI, The Council and The Church in a time of decision, Farrar, Straus, New York, 1964
• Cassidy, Edward Idris Cardinal (2005). "Section II: Interreligious Dialogue - Nostra Aetate". Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue: Unitatis Redintegratio, Nostra Aetate. New York: Paulist Press. pp. 125–225. ISBN 0-8091-4338-0. http://books.google.com/?id=XqFl9bkq7h0C&pg=PP9. 
• Cunningham, Philip A. (2006-07-14). "Uncharted Waters - The Future of Catholic-Jewish Relations". Commonweal CXXXIII (13). http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=1687. ^{[dead link]}
• Willebrands, Johannes Cardinal (1974-12-01). Guidelines and suggestions for implementing the conciliar declaration "Nostra Aetate" (N. 4). Commission For Religious Relations With The Jews (Holy See). http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19741201_nostra-aetate_en.html. Retrieved 2008-12-25. 
• "40th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate (A collection of resources)". http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/topics/NA-40.htm. Retrieved 2008-12-25. ^{[dead link]}
• US House Concurrent ResolutionRecognizing the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, and the continuing need for mutual interreligious respect and dialogue.
• "In Our Time". Forward (New York). 2005-10-28. http://www.forward.com/articles/2146/. Retrieved 2008-12-25. 
• Robinson, Neal (December 1991). "Massignon, Vatican II and Islam as an Abrahamic religion". Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 2 (2): 182–205. DOI:10.1080/09596419108720957. 
• Rosen, Rabbi David (2005-10-27). Nostra Aetate — Forty Years after Vatican II, Present and Future Perspectives. Commission For Religious Relations With The Jews (Holy See). http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20051027_rabbi-rosen_en.html. 
• Philip A. Cunningham, Nostra Aetate: A Catholic Act of Metanoia

External links[link]

• (English) Nostra Ætate from the Vatican website

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Robert A. Sungenis (born 1955), is an American Catholic apologist. He is the founder of The Bellarmine Report, renamed from the Bellarmine Theological Forum in 2011. He is the president of CAI Publishing, Inc. Sungenis is known for his apologetic works critiquing the Protestant doctrines of sola fide and sola scriptura. More recently, he has become known for his advocacy of geocentrism and also for his beliefs about Jews and Judaism that have created controversy.

Biography[link]

Robert Sungenis was raised in a Catholic family, but became a Protestant Christian at age nineteen.^{[1][dead link]} He held various posts (e.g., elder, preacher, adult Sunday school director) in several Protestant churches including a two-year employment under prophecy teacher Harold Camping of Family Radio.^[2] He obtained his B.A. in Religion from George Washington University in 1979, and an M.A. in theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1982. Sungenis obtained a Ph.D. in 2006 from the Calamus International University, a private distance-learning institution in Vanuatu which is noted according to Sungenis "for its academic freedom and alternative science and religious curriculum".^[1][3][4] His 700-page dissertation was on the subject of geocentrism^[5] and was then edited and published as the two-volume set, Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right.

Sungenis returned to Catholicism in 1992 at the age of thirty-seven. In 1994 he was the principal author of a book critiquing the eschatological views of Harold Camping and a number of prominent fundamentalist Protestant preachers.^[6] The story of his conversion to Catholicism is chronicled in the first of the Surprised By Truth books^[7] edited by Catholic apologist and author Patrick Madrid. He has debated many Protestant apologists, including James R. White, Dave Hunt, Michael Horton, Robert Godfrey and Robert Zins on doctrinal, theological, and historical issues such as sola scriptura, the papacy and papal infallibility, transubstantiation and the Mass, salvation and justification. He is the author of twenty books and over 100 published articles on theology and science.^{[citation needed]} Articles and reviews have been published in Our Sunday Visitor, The Catholic Answer, Catholic Faith and Family, The Coming Home Journal, Envoy Magazine, This Rock, Catholic Family News, The Remnant, Latin Mass Magazine and reviews in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Touchstone Magazine, Culture Wars magazine and Salon.com.

He has also begun his own non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation and publishing company, Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc.^[8].

Views on Jews and Judaism[link]

Sungenis has become known for controversial views of the Jewish people and Judaism that have been sharply criticized by some of his fellow Catholics and by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being anti-semitic.^[3][9][10] In 2002 he questioned the Holocaust, and according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "repeated a series of ancient anti-Semitic canards" and later wrote about the involvement of Jews and Israel in a New World Order Satanic conspiracy aimed at world domination.^[10][9]

Sungenis has responded that he is against Zionism, but that he is not anti-semitic. "Anti-semitism is a hatred for the Jewish race. There isn't a bone in my body that feels that way about Jewish people," he wrote.^[11] In 2008, Sungenis' bishop, Kevin C. Rhoades, denounced his views of the Jewish people and Judaism as "hostile, uncharitable, and un-Christian" and required Sungenis to stop writing about them. He also directed him to stop using the word "Catholic" in his organization's name.^[3] Sungenis has stated that he will only comply with Bishop Rhoades' directive to stop writing about Jews and Judaism if he is forced to do so "under the aegis of a canonical trial".^[12]

Geocentrism[link]

Sungenis has become known for his advocacy of geocentrism. He believes that physics and the Bible prove that the sun and all the planets orbit the Earth and that the Earth does not rotate. In support of his beliefs, Sungenis published the book Galileo Was Wrong in the hope that people will "give Scripture its due place and show that science is not all it's cracked up to be." Mainstream scientists reject this cosmological view as demonstrably false and untenable.^[13]

Publications[link]

• Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification, Queenship Publishing (1996), 774 pp. ISBN 1-57918-008-6
• Not By Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Queenship Publishing (1997), 650 pp. ISBN 1-57918-055-8
• How Can I Get to Heaven? The Bible's Teaching on Salvation Made Easy to Understand, Queenship Publishing (1997), 334 pp. ISBN 1-57918-007-8
• Not By Bread Alone: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice, Queenship Publishing (2000), 450 pp. ISBN 1-57918-124-4
• The Gospel According to Matthew (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 1), Queenship Publishing (2003), 427 pp. ISBN 1-57918-236-4
• The Apocalypse of St. John (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 2), Queenship Publishing (2007), 544 pp. ISBN 1-57918-329-8
• The Epistles of Romans and James (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 3), CAI Publishing, Inc. (2009), 665 pp. ISBN 0-9818660-6-9
• The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1 – 11 (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 4), CAI Publishing, Inc. (2009), 692 pp. ISBN 0-9818660-7-7
• The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 5), CAI Publishing, Inc. (2009), 423 pp. ISBN 0-9818660-8-5
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: The Scientific Evidence for Geocentrism, fifth edition (CAI Pub. Inc, 2009, 653 pages). ISBN 0-9818660-4-2
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: The Historical Evidence for Geocentrism, fifth edition (CAI Pub. Inc. 2009, 451 pages). ISBN 0-9818660-5-0
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: The Abridged Version, (CAI Pub. Inc. 2010, 739 pages). ISBN 0-9841859-4-1
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: A Synopsis of the Scientific and Historical Evidence for Geocentrism, (CAI Pub. Inc, 2010, 100 pages). ISBN 0-9841859-6-8
• Speaking in Tongues: Sign of Blessing: Sign of Judgment: A Critical Analysis of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, (CAI Pub. Inc. 2010, 80 pages). ISBN 0-9841859-5-X
• Catholic/Jewish Dialogue: Controversies and Corrections, CAI Publishing, Inc. (2010), 734 pp. ISBN 0-9841859-3-3

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bellarmine Theological Forum, Robert Sungenis' website
• Galileo Was Wrong, Sungenis' book on geocentrism
• Robert Sungenis profile and books on Goodreads

Peter Dimond is a former Australian rugby league footballer who played his club rugby league for Western Suburbs. Born in born in Dapto, New South Wales, he is the younger brother of Bobby Dimond. Peter was named both in the Western Suburbs Team of the Century and the Wests Tigers Team of the Century.

Dimond was selected at age 13 in a New South Wales schoolboy side in a curtain raiser to the 1952 Australia and New Zealand Test match.

While still a teenager, Dimond was selected to represent Australia in three test matches against Great Britain. Peter Dimond joined Western Suburbs in 1958. He played in all four of the club's grand final losses to the great St. George side. They lost 20-9 in 1958 with Dimond playing five-eighth, 22-0 in 1961, 9-6 in 1962 and 8-3 in 1963.

He was called up to play on the Kangaroo tour in 1963-64^[1] where he played in all six test matches. His tour highlight being his two tries in his country's 50-12 victory at Station Road, Swinton near Manchester that was dubbed the 'Swinton Massacre' and it was also the match that secured the Ashes for Australia on British soil for the first time. His final appearance in the Australian team came in the third and deciding test match against Great Britain in 1966 when Australia again retained the Ashes. At the time he left the club, Dimond held the record of a total of 83 tries for Western Suburbs. After leaving Western Suburbs he played out the rest of his career for a local Newcastle team in the early 1970s.

On Friday 24 September 2004 the Western Suburbs Magpies honoured their greatest ever players by naming their Team of the Century. Dimond was named on the wing.^[2] In 2008 the Western Suburbs Magpies celebrated their centenary by inducting six inaugural members into the club's Hall of Fame. These six included Dimond.^[3]

In 2010 Dimond was named in a South Newcastle team of the century.^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Peter Dimond at eraofthebiff.com
• Peter Dimond at Wests Archives

Eugene Michael Jones (born May 4, 1948 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a writer, former professor, and the current editor of Culture Wars magazine (formerly Fidelity Magazine).

He was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, but lost interest in it in early adulthood.^{[citation needed]} He became involved in the counterculture of the 1960s. He found little satisfaction after leaving his faith, and eventually returned to it after reading The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. Jones then obtained his Ph.D. from Temple University and began to teach at Saint Mary's College, of Notre Dame, Indiana. To Jones' displeasure, he found this college to be what he considered to be (in the words of Michael W. Cuneo who interviewed him) "the antithesis of what a Catholic college should be", being pro-choice, feminist and secular. He made little effort to conceal his views, leading to conflicts with many faculty, his department chairwoman and eventually the college's president. His department, which viewed him as a religious absolutist, decided against renewing his contract after his first year.^[1]

Jones's work has primarily been concerned with the relationship between the Catholic Church and secular culture as well as the sexual revolution and the wider cultural effects of the second Vatican council. Later work has focussed on the historical friction between the Catholic Church and Jews. Some of his critics have claimed his later work displays antisemitism, a claim that Jones denies, saying that any form of racism is against his Catholic faith.^[2]

Jones has stated publicly that he considers modern Judaism to be a wicked ideology, but that he condemns criticism of Jews based upon race.^[3] In February, 2008, due to a complaint of anti-Semitism from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the School of Architecture at The Catholic University of America cancelled a lecture series in which Jones was scheduled to speak. In an interview with The Washington Times Jones said that he rejected racism in all of its forms, consistent with Catholic teaching^[2] and responded to the cancellation in an article in Culture Wars.^[4]

In an interview with PressTV on the 2011 Libyan civil war, Jones praised Muammar Gaddafi for running his government "in the interest of the Libyan people" and denounced the NATO intervention as "a looting operation... This is NATO's attempt to use the Arab spring revolutions as cover to take over a country; a sovereign country that has not attacked NATO and to loot this country of its resources; its oil, its water and its gold."^[5]

Bibliography[link]

• The Angel and the Machine: The Rational Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1991) Open Court Publishing,ISBN 0-89385-195-8
• Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior (1993), Ignatius Press, ISBN 0-89870-447-2
• Dionysos Rising: The Birth of Cultural Revolution Out of the Spirit of Music (1994), Ignatius Press, ISBN 0-89870-484-7
• Living Machines: Bauhaus Architecture As Sexual Ideology (1995) Ignatius Press, ISBN 0-89870-464-2
• Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation & Political Control (1999), St. Augustine's Press, ISBN 1-58731-465-7
• Monsters From the Id: The Rise of Horror in Fiction and Film (2000), Spence Publishing ISBN 1-890626-06-6
• The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing (2005), St. Augustine's Press, ISBN 1-58731-775-3

Fidelity Press (self-published)

• Is Notre Dame Still Catholic? (1989), ISBN 0-929891-01-5
• John Cardinal Krol and the Cultural Revolution (1995), ISBN 0-929891-02-3
• The Medjugorje Deception: Queen of Peace, Ethnic Cleansing, Ruined Lives (1998), ISBN 0-929891-05-8
• The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History (2008), ISBN 0-929891-07-4
• Is Notre Dame Still Catholic? [expanded 2nd edition] (2009), ISBN 978-0-929891-01-9
• Ballet Parking: Performing The Nutcracker as a Counter-Revolutionary Act (2009), ISBN 978-0-929891-08-8

References[link]

External links[link]

• Culture Wars Magazine and Fidelity Press

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (May 2010)

Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz is a North American Orthodox rabbi. He received his ordination at Yeshiva University in 1949.

From 1992 until his retirement in July 2007 he was the Executive Director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, of which he was one of the co-founders. He was replaced by Rabbi Eugene Korn. He is known for the prominent role which he has played in Jewish-Catholic dialogue. He currently resides with his wife in Tel Aviv.

Ehrenkranz is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford, Connecticut where, since 1948, he has served as the Congregations spiritual leader.

He is the Synagogue Council of America's representative to the United Nations.

On October 14, 2010, he was presented with CCJU's prestigious Nostra Aetate Award for "his outstanding contributions to a world at peace."

He is friends with Senator Joe Lieberman, and his work was praised by Pope John Paul II.

Publications[link]

• Interfaith Dialogue: The Theory and the Practice (with Rabbi Eugene Korn)
• 'Religion, Woman and Family' http://www.qatar-conferences.org/new-dialogue/english/religionwoman.pdf

References[link]

• http://www.congregationagudathsholom.org/rabbiehrenkranz.htm
• "Congregation Aguath Sholom, Orthodox," The American Synagogue (Greenwood Publishing Group)

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