[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25021-25023]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   RECOGNIZING THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL'S 
  DECLARATION ON THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 260) recognizing the 40th 
anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relation 
of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, and the 
continuing need for mutual interreligious respect and dialogue, as 
amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 260

       Whereas 2005 marks the 40th anniversary of the promulgation 
     of Nostra Aetate, the declaration on the relation of the 
     Roman Catholic Church to non-Christian religions;
       Whereas on October 28, 1965, after the overwhelmingly 
     affirmative vote of the Second Vatican Council of the Roman 
     Catholic Church, Pope Paul VI issued Nostra Aetate, which 
     means ``in our time'';
       Whereas Nostra Aetate affirmed the respect of the Roman 
     Catholic Church for Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism, 
     and exhorted Catholics to engage in ``dialogue and 
     collaboration with the followers of other religions'';
       Whereas Nostra Aetate made possible a new relationship 
     between Catholics and Jews worldwide and opened a chapter in 
     Jewish-Christian relations that is unprecedented in its 
     closeness and warmth;
       Whereas Nostra Aetate states that the Roman Catholic Church 
     ``decries hatred, persecution, displays of anti-Semitism, 
     directed against Jews at any time and by anyone''; and
       Whereas Nostra Aetate clearly states that ``No foundation 
     therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to 
     discrimination between man and man or people and people, so 
     far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are 
     concerned.'': Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring),  That Congress--
       (1) recognizes the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican 
     Council's promulgation of Nostra Aetate, the declaration on 
     the relation of the Roman Catholic Church to non-Christian 
     religions;
       (2) appreciates the role of the Holy See in combating 
     religious intolerance and religious discrimination;
       (3) encourages the United States to continue to serve in a 
     leading role in combating anti-Semitism and other forms of 
     religious intolerance and religious discrimination worldwide;
       (4) acknowledges the role of Nostra Aetate in fostering 
     interreligious dialogue and mutual respect, including, in 
     particular, new relationships of collaboration and dialogue 
     between Jews and Catholics since the issuance of Nostra 
     Aetate; and
       (5) requests the President to issue a proclamation 
     recognizing the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate and the 
     historic role of Nostra Aetate in fostering mutual 
     interreligious respect and dialogue.


[[Page 25022]]


  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).


                             General Leave

  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on the concurrent resolution under 
consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, in many respects, the past 40 years have been immensely 
troubling and difficult ones. Indeed, they have been filled with 
intolerance, hatred, and genocide. Think of Rwanda. Think of Cambodia. 
We spend entirely too much time on the floor decrying unspeakable 
crimes and preparing our concrete responses.
  Our own shores have witnessed terrorism on a massive scale. And while 
we have avoided massive destruction on the scale of the Second World 
War, or another Holocaust, just last month we saw a new Holocaust 
called for, in essence, by the head of state of a member of the United 
Nations.
  There are certainly countervailing forces of good in the world, 
forces that are prepared to deal one way or another with hate and the 
consequences. One way to deal with the forces of hate is to prepare to 
meet them on the battlefield or defeat them in shadowy wars carried out 
in the back alleys of far-off lands.
  There is another path, the one we commemorate today: to foster 
understanding, indeed love, among diverse peoples and remove the roots 
of war from their hearts.
  Forty years ago, Pope Pius VI issued a declaration entitled Nostra 
Aetate, ``In Our Times.'' This constituted the Roman Catholic Church's 
statement expressing its respect for adherents of non-Christian 
religions and denouncing every form of bigotry directed against them. 
The groundbreaking statement contained extended discussions of 
Catholicism's relations with some of the major religions, especially 
Islam and Judaism, and most specifically concerning the charge of 
deicide leveled against Jews even in contemporary times. Further, it 
jump-started many rounds of respectful discussion among religious 
leaders and laypersons.
  A few moments ago, I alluded to some of the horrors the world has 
witnessed in the past 40 years. In order to judge the impact of Nostra 
Aetate, we must ask ourselves how much worse a world without the 
gracious spirit of Nostra Aetate would have been. It would clearly have 
been a more dismal place.
  I ask that all my colleagues join in this very important concurrent 
resolution originated by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise with my friend from Texas to support this 
concurrent resolution. The document marked a historic milestone in the 
effort of the Roman Catholic Church to improve its relations with Jews 
and non-Christian religions and to launch a new, progressive, positive 
dialogue among them.
  Mr. Speaker, in a world that is increasingly drawn together through 
economic, cultural and ties of all kinds, there simply is no place for 
bigotry, racism, religious hatred, intolerance, or prejudice. The 
document whose 40th anniversary we are recognizing makes that 
abundantly clear. And it is appropriate for us to reflect upon that at 
this time, recognizing also the important role of the Holy See in the 
fight against religious intolerance and discrimination, and I have 
appreciated the leadership that we have seen coming from the Vatican of 
late in this regard.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), the author of today's resolution.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon for yielding 
me this time.
  I rise to urge support of H. Con. Res. 260. I want to thank first my 
colleagues and friends, Chairman Hyde and Representative Lantos. Both 
have been tremendously helpful in bringing this resolution forward. 
This resolution has the support of 65 bipartisan cosponsors here in the 
House. As my friend pointed out, it commemorates the 40th anniversary 
of Nostra Aetate, a hallmark declaration by the Roman Catholic Church 
on religious respect and interfaith relations, and it celebrates the 
historic relationship between Jews and Catholics and among other 
religions worldwide.
  My resolution also calls for this country and this Congress to 
continue to condemn and combat anti-Semitism and all forms of religious 
hatred and bigotry around the world.
  First a little bit of history, Mr. Speaker. This was initiated by 
Pope John XXIII through the Second Vatican Council, and Nostra Aetate 
then was issued by, Pope Paul VI, in October, 1965, 40 years ago, after 
a vote of 2,221 to 88 by the Catholic bishops.

                              {time}  1415

  It is a historic declaration, and we should remember its essential 
message: the need for interreligious dialogue and religious respect, 
and that is a message that is still vitally important today.
  Seen from this perspective, today, the affirmations of this document 
may not seem so impressive. But those of us who remember back to that 
time, on a bit of reflection, will understand how monumental this 
statement was, how far it reached throughout the world, beyond the 
Catholic Church, beyond Christians. It was a paradigm shift in how 
religious people think about each other.
  As my friend, the gentleman from Oregon said, in this day we 
certainly need a refresher course in how religious people can think 
about each other in a positive way.
  Over the past 40 years, there has been noticeable progress. Nostra 
Aetate was written by Catholics for Catholics, but its impact has been 
felt by almost all people of faith in the world. Less than three pages 
in length, this document, that goes by the Latin words that mean ``in 
our time,'' was a rare moment of self-check for Catholics. We all know 
how hard it is to look inside ourselves and find things that need to be 
improved, things that are wrong and need to be changed.
  Nostra Aetate was a controversial document at the time. I am not sure 
that anyone knows all the internal politics that went into writing it, 
but even in the press at the time, it was known to be controversial.
  Why should we be talking about it here in the House of 
Representatives? Why should we be talking about religion? Why should we 
be talking about a Roman Catholic document? Is it even appropriate 
here? Well, certainly not in a worshipful or a theological or an 
ecclesiastical way, but this is an important document in world history 
that says a lot to us as Americans.
  Remember, there is much that we honor in our country's history. There 
is much genius that we see in our founding documents, in our 
Constitution. One of the greatest accomplishments of this country was 
to establish freedom of religion, freedom for religious belief and 
religious practice, and freedom from religion. That is rare, even 
today. It truly was a stroke of genius by our Founders. And, as so 
much, in our constitutional heritage it is still a work in progress.
  Freedom of religion, freedom for religion, freedom from religion are 
concepts that are hard to incorporate into our lives. We are not 
talking about simple tolerance, but a recognition that if we are a 
nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all 
are created equal, then it is not enough just to recognize the right of 
each other to exist, but as a nation we achieve positive social and 
political good that comes from learning from and drawing on and 
building up each other. So it is indeed appropriate that we in this 
body, as we wrestle with the modern-day embodiment of the ideas of our 
Founders, that we recognize this

[[Page 25023]]

historic document. It was a bold and courageous document.
  Mr. Speaker, it is hard to face some obvious and unattractive 
blemishes that one might have. It is bold and courageous to say that 
another's fundamental faith and belief has validity, because that can 
only raise questions about the meaning of one's own belief. This was a 
courageous document.
  Now, I speak as one who by affirmation, heritage, upbringing, and 
religious practice is neither Roman Catholic nor Jewish, but the change 
that this made in America certainly has improved my life and the life 
of every American. Anti-Semitism has been a poison that has from time 
to time surfaced in our country. Certainly, we see it on the rise in 
too many places around the world today. But this document put a check 
on the official sanction of religious intolerance, and it has led to a 
number of improvements.
  Father John Pawlikowski, pointed out that this year Nosta Aetate has 
led to a cleansing of educational materials, and the removal of hateful 
and bigoted language that previously appeared. It has led to mutual 
recognition of the spiritual value of others' religious sacred writings 
of others; it has led to a fundamental rethinking of the relationship 
between the church and other religions, a process that is still under 
way.
  It led to Pope John Paul's visit to the Auschwitz death camp when he 
spoke about the memory of the people whose sons and daughters were 
intended for total extermination. He said that it is not permissible 
for anyone to pass by the inscriptions there with indifference.
  It led to his unprecedented visit to a synagogue in Rome in 1986, and 
to Pope John Paul's visit to the Holy Land, including Israel and 
Palestine. It led to a pivotal moment when he shook hands with Prime 
Minister Ehud Barak. It led to the moment when he walked across the 
plaza at the western wall and inserted his handwritten prayer 
expressing Christian regret for the wrongs done to the Jewish people.
  This had reverberations all around the world and certainly here in 
the United States, the country built on the concept of liberty and 
religious freedom.
  This morning on public radio, a young man presented his essay called 
``This I Believe.'' Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of 
the Interfaith Youth Corps, a Chicago-based organization fostering the 
international interfaith youth movement. He pointed out that when he 
attended high school in the western suburbs of Chicago not many years 
ago, he, as a Hindu, ate lunch with a Jew, a Mormon, a Catholic, and a 
Lutheran. They were all devout to a degree, he said, but they never 
really talked about religion. They all knew that they had some 
differences in their permitted diets and certain times that they could 
not eat certain things. He was comfortable in his tolerance for the 
others.
  But then he went on to talk about the most painful recollection of 
his life, which occurred when he allowed anti-Semitic comments about 
his friend to go unchallenged. He quoted the great American poet 
Gwendolyn Brooks: ``We are each other's business; we are each other's 
harvest; we are each other's magnitude and bond.''
  He said, ``I cannot go back in time and take away the suffering of my 
Jewish friend, but through action, I can prevent it from happening to 
others.''
  Martin Luther King in a different, but related, matter said, 
``Through the laws that we pass,'' such as we pass in this body, ``we 
cannot change a person's heart. But,'' he said, ``we can restrain the 
heartless.''
  Like Mr. Patel, none of us can go back, but we can look back and we 
can see the progress that has been made in the last 40 years to fulfill 
the spirit of Nostra Aetate; and we can continue every day to take 
action to ensure that it does not happen in our schools, in our 
communities, in our cities and towns.
  Nostra Aetate was not empty sentimentality; it was historic, 
important, and effective. It made a difference in the history of the 
world. As Rabbi David Rosen, the Director of the American Jewish 
Committee's Interreligious Department, wrote, ``Even if the effect of 
this transformation has not fully reached the rank and file around the 
world, its ramifications cannot be overestimated, and there is much to 
give thanks for on this anniversary. The anniversary 40 years ago at 
the end of October is well worth recognizing.''
  Nostra Aetate was the first statement on interreligious respect that 
had been issued in the 2,000-year history of the church. Rabbi Gary 
Bretton Granatoor, Director of Interfaith Affairs at the Anti-
Defamation League, reminded the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) 
and me that the pilgrimage out of the wilderness took 40 years from 
Egypt to Sinai to Canaan. He said that it is not surprising that in 40 
years, we have not fully achieved the vision of Pope John XXIII around 
the world or here in this country, but we have made enormous progress. 
Nostra Aetate demanded that the church and all people of faith examine 
themselves anew in relation to other peoples of faith.
  We need to ensure we carry this message of religious respect to all 
that we do here. We can learn the spirit of Nostra Aetate and take 
action to check religious bigotry, religious hatred and advance the 
American experiment--the American Dream--of a more perfect union, built 
not just on respect, but on an understanding that we are indeed a 
nation conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all are 
equal, and all have something to contribute to America's success.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers at this 
point. I would just conclude by welcoming also the resolution's 
expression of support for the United States to continue to lead the 
fight against anti-Semitism and other forms of religious and racial 
prejudice and discrimination, and that people of all faiths have a 
critical role to play in that matter.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Stearns). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) that the House suspend 
the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 260, as 
amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this question will 
be postponed.

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