Academic literature on the topic 'Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel'

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) drew the attention of Catholics to human dignity of non-Christian believers who have right to their religious identity. After the Council Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI established and supported the Pontifical Council for Interreligious dialogue with the task to study other religions as they perceive themselves and to organize friendly encounters with their representatives. Pope Francis, elected on 13 March 2013, brought into his ministry the experience of a Church leader in South America. This is why in his teaching documents, encounters and discourses he points out the social role of religion (Evangelii Gaudium, nos 176-258), the need for preserving environment as our common home (Laudato si, 199-245) and special pastoral care of couples in mixed marriages as believers who can practice interreligious dialogue by persevering in their religious affiliation (Amoris Laetitia, 247-248). On his apostolic journeys to Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Egypt he met representatives of civil authorities and Muslim religious leaders. Sheikh of Al-Azhar Ahmed Al Tayeb gave him the opportunity to address the Muslim participants at the Peace Conference in Cairo on 28 April 2017. Pope Francis’s acts and speeches can inspire Religious Education teachers in Bosnia and Herzegovina to develop respective religious identities in their students by preserving shared values and introducing them to universal ethics.

Abstract This manuscript analyses the role and importance of cooperation between the Visegrad Group (V4) countries and the most globally active member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which is the United Arab Emirates. In view of the V4+ concept implemented with partners from the Middle East, Israel or Egypt, the presented analysis is important and meets the lack of this element in the scientific debate. This study is based on empirical research and its findings are the result of not only observation but also 10 years of direct participation of the author in many activities related to the cooperation of the Visegrad Group countries and the UAE, including as ambassador, senior advisor to Dubai Expo 2020, especially responsible for strategies and dynamisation relations between Central and Eastern Europe (except Poland) and the United Arab Emirates. According to the author’s opinion, presented in the conclusion, there is now a huge opportunity to present V4 projects, including as a part of the broader strategy of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) during World Expo Dubai, which will take place from October 2021 to March 2022, and make this initiative a globally recognizable project. However, coordinating and accelerating joint actions is required.

In the wake of recent tensions in Catholic Jewish relations in the United States, this article examines the implementation of the Second Vatican Council's decision "to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel," as Pope Benedict XVI has described it. Official documents of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and a body of papal teachings put forth by Pope John Paul have authoritatively delineated the direction according to which the Council is to be interpreted and put into practice. This trajectory of implementation has begun to articulate what could be called a "theology of shalom" concerning the Catholic Church's relationship to Judaism and the Jewish people, which includes a respect for Judaism's continuing covenantal life with God and a commitment to interreligious dialogue for the purpose of mutual understanding. However, this post-conciliar trajectory is challenged by Catholics who fear that the universal salvific mediation of Christ is being threatened. Advancing theological concepts that express a sort of "neo-supersessionist" devaluation of Judaism, these critiques necessarily disregard relevant papal and Vatican teaching. The article ends with an examination of the magisterial weight of the conciliar and post-conciliar implementing documents, concluding that their clear direction must be followed. As John Paul II declared, "It is only a question of studying them carefully, of immersing oneself in their teachings and of putting them into practice."