Walking Together - Catholic and Jewish communities launch landmark document

Representatives from Australia’s Catholic and Jewish communities gathered at Mary MacKillop Place, North Sydney, on Harmony Day in a spirit of unity amidst religious diversity.

The occasion was the launch of a landmark document by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, titled Walking Together: Catholics with Jews in the Australian Context. A number of Catholic religious and members of the Secretariat of Catholic Religious Australia were among those present.

Jillian Segal, President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Bishop Michael McKenna, Chair of the Bishops Commission for Unity and Interreligious Dialogue, and CRA Publications Officer and faith educator, Dr Teresa Pirola at the document launch. PHOTO: ACBC.

Sister of Our Lady of Sion, Mary Reaburn NDS, an advisor and contributor to the development of Walking Together, opened the launch alongside Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio from Emanuel Synagogue (Sydney) who recited a psalm in Hebrew which Sr Reaburn translated into English. The voices of two women, from different traditions, praying a Scripture held in common, invited a poignant moment of reflection.

Bishop Michael McKenna, Chair of the Bishops’ Commission for Unity and Interreligious Dialogue, who welcomed the gathering and provided the context of the new document, noted that it has been 30 years since the first Guidelines on Catholic Jewish Relations were published by the ACBC, and that a great deal has changed in the world during that time, impacting Jewish-Christian relations.

Jillian Segal AO, President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, delivered a response to “Walking Together” on behalf of the Australian Jewish community, welcoming the document’s acknowledgement of the Jewishness of Jesus as an historical fact, and the intimate links between Judaism and Christianity. She also observed that Walking Together “clearly repudiates the negative portrayal of the Pharisees . . . which is still a commonly-deployed trope. The document reaffirms the truth that Jesus’ commitment to a renewal of the Jewish faith of his people ‘aligned him with the Pharisees, a movement of religious renewal centred on the spiritual life of the family’”.

Dr Teresa Pirola, CRA’s Publications Officer, author and faith educator with a special interest in Jewish-Christian relations, presented a Catholic response to the document. She affirmed the Statement’s ability to explore substantial theological and pastoral issues in a manner accessible for a general audience.

“Walking Together addresses a wide range of themes found in the Jewish-Christian dialogue, including the Jewish roots of Christianity, the enduring covenant between God and the Jewish people, our dialogue around a shared Scripture, the sensitive subject of ‘mission’, the Holocaust, antisemitism, and the importance of our cooperative works for the common good,” she said.

Contributors to the Walking Together document, pictured at the launch. PHOTO: ACBC.

In reply, Bishop McKenna said that interfaith dialogue should never be simply a polite exchange of platitudes. Robust and mutually respectful engagement on real issues is all part of “walking together” in friendship.

That engagement was present, in a spirit of goodwill, with speakers from both Jewish and Catholic communities raising some pointed queries about Walking Together, such as why the 2023 statement avoids any mention, theologically or politically, of “the Land”, despite the Jewish bond to the Land being intrinsic to Jewish identity and covenant.

“How is it that, in 2023, we Catholics can readily affirm the belonging that First Nations Australians experience for Land, yet ignore the Jewish sense of belonging to Land which is every bit as spiritual and historical, and millennia-long?” asked Dr Pirola.

Jillian Segal affirmed the way the document speaks with sensitivity and insight about anti-Jewish and antisemitic influences in Christianity’s past, but also questioned why the document “does not take the logical next step . . . by recognising that contemporary antisemitism has borrowed anti-Jewish tropes with supposedly Christian religious motifs, and deployed these against Jews in new ways, sometimes with equally lethal consequences”.

Fr Michael Trainor and Jeremy Jones AM, both veterans of the Catholic-Jewish dialogue in Australia, offered closing remarks from the Catholic and Jewish communities respectively.

Fr Michael referred to Swedish scholar Krister Stendahl’s phrase “holy envy” to reflect on how learning about another’s faith tradition can deepen a Christian’s experience of God.

Jeremy Jones spoke of the extraordinary “seismic” shifts that have taken place in history which have brought us to this current “Golden Age” of Jewish-Christian relations.

“The positive, meaningful contact and mutual respect is unprecedented,” he said.

Other representatives of the Jewish community who attended the launch included Rabbi Dr Ben Elton, Chief Minister of the Great Synagogue in Sydney and Rabbi David Freedman of the Central Synagogue. ECAJ staffers Peter Wertheim AM and Julie Nathan were present, along with David Ossip, President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and Vic Alhadeff, Non-Executive Director of SBS. Alissa Foster attended as President of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, and community activists Lynda Ben-Menashe, Renee Pinshaw and Harry Oppermann were also part of the significant Jewish presence at the launch.

From the Catholic community, all members of the Commission for Christian Unity and Interreligious Dialogue were present at the launch — Bishop Michael McKenna, Bishop Greg Homeming OCD, Archbishop Amel Nona and Bishop Robert Rabbat. Also present were representatives from Australian Catholic University, Sydney Catholic Schools, the Australian Council of Christians and Jews, and other interfaith and ecumenical bodies.

Among the Religious and CRA community, Sr Giovanni Farquer RSJ, Executive Director of the Archdiocese of Sydney's Commission of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, facilitated the proceedings. Other Religious present included Sisters Elizabeth Delaney SGS, Margaret Scharf OP and Fr Patrick McInerney SSC.

“At CRA, we value the interfaith work done by individuals and communities of Religious in Australia and trust that this new document will be a catalyst for discussion, prayer and action,” said CRA National Executive Director Anne Walker.

Walking Together can be downloaded as a PDF at the ACBC website.