Catholic-Jewish dialogue group visits Georgia, Alabama civil rights sites

ATLANTA — Leaders of the Catholic and Jewish religion communities gathered for fellowship and to seek out methods to heal the hatred of racism in a three-day journey to civil rights landmarks.

From Might 11th of September, representatives of the Nationwide Council of Synagogues and U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops and different leaders met to debate the historical past and influence of racism in society, their respective faiths and to seek out options to create a greater world.

The journey started in Atlanta, with stops on the Lyke Home Catholic Heart situated on the Traditionally Black School and Universities in Atlanta’s West Finish and the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Website. It concluded in Alabama, with visits to historic websites in Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery.

Co-chairs of the dialogue between the Nationwide Council of Synagogues and the USCCB are Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington, and Rabbi David Straus, government director of the Nationwide Council of Synagogues.

This was the cardinal’s first go to to Atlanta since being put in as Washington’s archbishop in 2019. The next yr, he was elevated to cardinal by Pope Francis. He was Atlanta’s archbishop from 2005 till Pope Francis appointed him to move the Washington Archdiocese.

“It appears like coming residence,” stated Gregory on his return.

In line with its web site, the Nationwide Council of Synagogues is a partnership of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist actions in Judaism coping with interreligious affairs on a nationwide stage. The council believes religions ought to dialogue with each other to construct a greater society and world.

A purpose for this group and its three-day occasion is to create a highschool curriculum for Catholic and Jewish faculties to find out about each other’s religion traditions and discover the problems of racism in America.

Gregory has been energetic in Catholic-Jewish dialogue for a lot of many years. He’s a former chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

His work consists of the Atlanta Archdiocese’s 2015 jubilee celebration of “Nostra Aetate” — the 1965 Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions — and the annual follow-up occasions that inspired dialogue and fellowship between the Catholic and Jewish religion traditions.

“Nostra Aetate” was the Second Vatican Council doc that reworked the church’s method to Judaism after centuries of troubled relations.

“We’re so divided as a society — racially divided, religiously divided, politically divided,” stated Gregory. “We have to take no matter alternatives come our approach to work collectively for instance of how individuals needs to be neighbors, associates, brothers and sisters.”

Interreligious and interfaith dialogue have been a ardour for Straus, who has been government director of the Nationwide Council of Synagogues for about eight years.

“If you get critically engaged on this work, you not solely find out about different individuals of religion and what they imagine and the way they reside their lives,” stated Straus. “Nevertheless it forces you to essentially look inward at your personal religion custom. And I feel it really strengthens your religion and strengthens your dedication as a result of it’s a must to ask actually necessary questions.”

The assembly started at Lyke Home, which serves college students from Morehouse School, Spelman School, Clark Atlanta College and Georgia State College. Council members have been greeted by pupil ambassadors from Our Girl of Mercy Excessive Faculty in Fayetteville, Georgia.

After lunch, members have been in a position to tour the Lyke Home gallery, which honors the late Archbishop James P. Lyke of Atlanta and the historical past and contributions of Black Catholics.

“We’re right here in a facility that’s devoted to the formation and schooling of younger individuals,” stated Gregory. “Anytime our younger individuals can attain out throughout non secular, cultural, language variations, it bodes very properly for our future.”

The primary day concluded with a go to to the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Park, which included the King Heart, the crypt of the Rev. King and Coretta Scott King, and the unique and new Ebenezer Baptist church buildings.

After a day of conferences and stories, the council started their journey to Alabama, the place members visited the sixteenth Road Baptist Church in Birmingham and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

In Montgomery, the council visited the Rosa Parks Museum, the Legacy Museum and the Nationwide Memorial for Peace and Justice by Equal Justice Initiative.

To have the ability to spend three days collectively and share an extremely highly effective expertise is a unprecedented alternative, stated Straus.

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Smith is a workers author at The Georgia Bulletin, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.