Catholics and Jews Find More Common Ground at Madrid Summit

With the backdrop of positive steps on Jewish-Catholic relations under Pope Francis I, more than 50 leaders from both faiths gathered in Madrid, Spain, on Oct. 13 for the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ICJLC) summit to further religious cooperation.

The ICJLC, the official Catholic-Jewish dialogue group, was formed in 1967 shortly after the Second Vatican Council’s groundbreaking declaration Nostra Aetate, which disavowed centuries of Catholic Church anti-Semitism and paved the way for improved Catholic-Jewish relations.

Since 1967, the committee has met nearly two dozen times and has issued several important joint declarations concerning matters of faith, ethics, and social issues.

According to a statement issued after the summit, whose was “Challenges for Religion in Contemporary Society,” the gathering addressed those challenges “in a series of presentations, discussions and workshops on the social, political, cultural, ethical, and religious circumstances in which men and women today seek to express their religious beliefs and follow the teachings of their religious traditions.”