Conference on Catholic-Jewish Relations One Month before Pope's Pilgrimage to Israel

American Jewish Committee
Friday, 4 February 2000

The dramatic impact of Pope John Paul II on Catholic-Jewish relations will be the focus of the third annual conference of The Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, a collaboration of the American Jewish Committee and Saint Leo University.

The two-day conference on Saint Leo's university campus, in Saint Leo, Florida, will bring prominent Catholic and Jewish leaders together to assess the current state of relations between the two faith communities. Special emphasis will be given to Vatican-Israel relations, the Catholic response to the Holocaust, and prospects for future interaction on a local and regional level.

The February 23-24 conference is taking place one month before the pontiff's historic pilgrimage to Israel.

"Pope John Paul II's role in shaping Catholic-Jewish relations has been extraordinary," said Rabbi A. James Rudin, AJC's director of interreligious affairs and co-chair of the conference. "Since his election in 1978, he has strengthened those relations around the world. Our conference will be a unique opportunity to explore the Pope's influence in a serious and systematic way."

Father Michael Cooper, S.J, director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies and co-chair of the conference, commented: "This conference is meaningful to participants. They will receive historical, psychological and religious resources for advancing their personal appreciation of their brothers and sisters of other faiths, and they will receive practical leads in how to move the dialogue forward intellectually."

The conference is made possible, in part, by a grant from AJC's Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding.

Highlights of the two-day conference, "The Evolution of Catholic-Jewish Relations During the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II," include:

- Ambassador Avi Granot, Minister for Public Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and Dr. Eugene J. Fisher, executive director for Catholic-Jewish Relations at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, will examine Vatican-Israel relations.
- Archbishop Alexander J. Brunett, Archbishop of Seattle and Chairman of the NCCB's Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Committee, and Rabbi A. James Rudin, AJC's National Director of Interreligious Affairs, will assess the prospects for future Catholic –Jewish relations.
- Ralph Grunewald, AJC's Assistant Executive Director for Policy and Program, and the Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, professor of social ethics at the Catholic Theological Union at the University of Chicago, will discuss meaningful ways of preserving the memory of the Holocaust.
- Brother Stephen McMichael of Saint Louis University and Rabbi Michael Singer, Abrams Professor of Jewish Thought and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, will explore the current state of relations between Christianity and Judaism.
- Practical approaches to developing and strengthening Catholic-Jewish relations will be explored in a series of concurrent workshops.

The Rev. Pawlikowski will receive the Catholic-Jewish Studies Center's second annual Eternal Light Award at a dinner on Feb. 24, following the conference.

The dinner's keynote speaker will be Patrick O'Neill, president of the South Florida Center for Theological Studies and director of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations of the Archdiocese of Miami.

The Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies was established in 1998 as a collaboration between the American Jewish Committee and Saint Leo University. Both organizations are firmly committed to developing mutual respect and understanding between Catholics and Jews. The Center has already become an important intellectual and spiritual resource for both clergy and lay people.

The American Jewish Committee, founded in 1906, builds bridges of understanding across ethnic, national, racial and religious lines in America and around the world.

Chartered in 1889, Saint Leo University is a four-year Catholic, liberal arts based university located just north of Tampa, Florida. Saint Leo became a university on August 24, 1999.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org