October is the Month of Mission in the Catholic Church. This article would like to express how we pay due attention to the Church celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the opening of the second Vatican council (October 11, 1962-2022). Because we are limited to going through all the missionary contributions from Vatican II, let us just point out the celebration of the missionary month being inspired by Nostra Aetate, the declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, proclaimed by His Holiness Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965. To this missionary document of the Church, we also wish happy 57th Birthday.
“In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship” (NA 1).
If the Church is inspired to live out her relationship to non-Christian religions, I must ask myself what my participation in this essential and missionary activity of the Body of Christ is. Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), the Latin name by which The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions is known, formalized an expanded attitude of dialogue and respect toward the major non-Christian religions of the world: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Although it is the shortest of the Second Vatican Council’s documents, its influence continues to be felt in the life of the Church today. Pope Benedict XVI called the declaration “the Magna Carta of interreligious dialogue.”
During the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, in 2015, the secretary of the interreligious dialogue office, Fr. Miguel Angel said that while much has been done since the document’s publication, there is still much more to do in advancing relations between the Catholic Church and non-Christian religions. I think this much more to be done must now go down to the heart of each member of the Body of Christ to promote what Christians and non-Christians have in common and what draws all of us to fellowship.
The path indicated by Nostra Aetate is still of great relevance and, as it says in the declaration, still today we are exhorted to recognize, preserve, and advance all the spiritual, moral, and socio-cultural values found in religions. We are grateful to the Church that inspires everyone to journey toward the recognition of what is true and holy in other religions. Only these can open our hearts to call God our Father, and consequently, we call others our brothers and sisters. “In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and "serve him shoulder to shoulder" (NA 4). How do we communicate this calling of Nostra Aetate at all levels of the members of the Church? Are relationships between the Catholic Church and the non-Christian religions becoming my concern as a member of the Body of Christ? Or I just let the task to the institutional or academic levels of relationship?
Being in the Philippines as a Xaverian Missionary in formation, I am inclined to connect Nostra Aetate with the triple Dialogue of the FABC as far as the dialogue with religions is concerned. At this point, let us consider Asia the very fertile land of mission where each one of us is called to live out the relationship with non-Christian religions. Interreligious Dialogue –in all its kinds—becomes therefore an appropriate way to articulate the revelations of Nostra Aetate: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, the Church proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself” (NA 2).
In faithfulness to the divine initiative of self-communication, the Church too must enter a dialogue of salvation with all men and women. Indeed, the foundation of the Church's commitment to dialogue is not merely anthropological but primarily theological, a commitment to the Dialogue of Salvation which is an integral element of the Church's evangelizing mission (cf. DP 38). We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man and woman, created as he/she is in the image of God. Our relation to God the Father and our relation to our brothers and sisters have so linked together that Scripture says: “He who does not love does not know God” (See NA 5).
Once again, Happy 57th Anniversary to Nostra Aetate and happy mission to each one of us who, motivated by the theology of Interreligious Dialogue, finds ways to live out the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions either through [1] the dialogue of life (where people strive to live in an open and neighborly spirit, sharing their joys and sorrows, their human problems and preoccupations), [2] the dialogue of action (in which Christians and others collaborate for the integral development and liberation of people), [3] the dialogue of theological exchange (where specialists seek to deepen their understanding of their respective religious heritages and to appreciate each other's spiritual values), or [4] the dialogue of religious experience (where persons, rooted in their own religious traditions, share their spiritual riches, for instance with regard to prayer and contemplation, faith and ways of searching for God or the Absolute).
