Nostra Aetate and the Transformation of Catholic Interreligious Relations

This article will review the developments that prepared Catholics for Nostra aetate , beginning with Catholic participation in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, where James Cardinal Gibbons proclaimed that Catholics meet other religious practitioners “on the platform of charity and benevolence.” It will survey major developments of Catholic teaching in the declaration, including the assertion that there is one community uniting all peoples and nations and the mention of four specific religious traditions. It will discuss the impact of this declaration on Catholic relations with practitioners of other religious traditions, especially those named in Nostra aetate : Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews. It will conclude with an assessment of the complex and ambiguous interreligious situation at the present time.