Official takes stock of Vatican-Jewish relations
January 17, 2026
A Vatican official took stock of the past year’s developments in Jewish-Catholic relations and focused on the commemorations of the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate.
Nostra Aetate is the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions. Father Norbert Hoffman, SDB, the secretary of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, offered his assessment in an article for the Vatican newspaper.
“Sixty years of official dialogue with Judaism on the part of the Catholic Church are a valid reason to thank the God of Israel, who is also the God of Christians, for the good fruits produced by our collaboration,” said Father Hoffman, who added:
The celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate in Rome and the Vatican can be seen as an expression of gratitude for what has been achieved and made possible through dialogue, but also as an encouragement, despite the existing difficulties, to continue with confidence and hope on the path undertaken. Jews and Christians appertain to the same people of God and are therefore dependent on one another; in courageously facing the future, they should therefore bear witness together to God’s love and faithfulness to humanity.
Father Hoffman also noted that the Church in Italy, Poland, Austria, and the Netherlands commemorates January 17 as a Day of Judaism; the day precedes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
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