Congress of emerging leadership in Jewish-Catholic dialogue

From June 30 to July 2, 2014, a congress for the emerging leadership in the dialogue between Jews and Catholics took place in Berlin. The organizers of the congress were the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations and the Pontifical Council for Relations with the Jews.

Fifty young adults, twenty five Jews and twenty five Catholics, coming from more than ten different countries, together with leaders in the dialogue today, gathered together. Among the Catholic participants were three people who live in Israel (present in the photograph): Eddie Schopping, a consecrated member of the Focolare Movement, Tony Hain, a native of Haifa and seminarian for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and myself, seminarian for the Saint James Vicariate.

The purpose of these meetings is to create and encourage strong relations among the members of the emerging leadership, young adults who dream of a better, reformed world, who intend to search together for new ways to bring people together and unite the human family, without giving up on spiritual and religious values that characterize their lives.

The program of the congress was intensive and rich, including times for lectures and discussions as well as workshops for the young adults by themselves. The themes, all important and interesting included: the place of the religions in the modern world, faith life in secular society, the threat of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, freedom of expression, the role of religious leaders in society, the contribution of religion to peace making and promoting coexistence.

We found in the congress young people, intelligent, sharp, open and tolerant, nourishing hopes that in fifty years’ time we will be happy about the world we will be leaving our children. As the emerging leadership, we are dealing with the challenges of our times without relinquishing our Jewish (there were Orthodox, Reform and Conservative Jews) or Catholic identity and without letting this identity become an obstacle or a separation wall between us. On the contrary, we felt that we could do something together to reinvigorate the perception of the other and promote mutual understanding, struggle against stereotypes that are still wide spread and build bridges of peace and reconciliation.

We came home to Israel at a difficult time, suffering and mourning are almost tangible. The sad and frightening news reached us during the congress and we prayed and will continue to pray that we will get beyond this period of crisis and that we might all be able to learn from it how urgent and how preferable peace is.