Scholastic17:
I personally don’t like the Nostrae Aetate document too much. It seems to fly in the face of previously established tradition. It seems to spit in the face of all those Europeans who died in the Crusades.
I don’t see what tradition it flies in. The Church has always called for peace among people of different religions. The Church also values all people regardless of religion and calls them to fulfill their calling and embrace the fullness of the Truth.
The Church has always seen truth in other religions and has never tried to tear down what was good–NA just lays that out in detail.
Likewise, it was Pope St. Gregory VII in the 11th century who said Muslims worship the same God (check the footnotes of Nostra Aetate).
Likewise, the Crusaders would have preferred peace to war. Nostra Aetate calls the Muslims to peace too. Also, we should not hold a grudge against those who have attacked us and we have had to fight against–we are called to be meek and to forgive–vengenance is the Lord’s alone.
Some things you should read showing the Tradition about the Church existing in peace with other religions and treating their adherants with respect as well as accepting what is true from them:
Pope Blessed Gregory X,
Protection Of The Jews October 7, 1272
(read the whole thing)
Pope Paul III,
Sublimus Dei (On the Enslavement and Evangelization of Indians) May 29, 1537
(read the whole thing, but epsecially how those outside the faith should be treated and what means should be used to convert them)
Pope Pius XII,
Summi Pontificatus (On the Unity of Human Society) October 10, 1939
(read the whole thing)
Pope Pius XII,
Evangelii Praecones (Promotion of Catholic Missions) June 2, 1951
- Although owing to Adam’s fall, human nature is tainted with original sin, yet it has in itself something that is naturally Christian[43]; and this, if illumined by divine delight and nourished by God’s grace, can eventually be changed into true and supernatural virtue.
- This is the reason why the Catholic Church has neither scorned nor rejected the pagan philosophies. Instead, after freeing them from error and all contamination she has perfected and completed them by Christian revelation. So likewise the Church has graciously made her own the native art and culture which in some countries is so highly developed. She has carefully encouraged them and has brought them to a point of aesthetic perfection that of themselves they probably would never have attained. By no means has she repressed native customs and traditions but has given them a certain religious significance; she has even transformed their feast days and made them serve to commemorate the martyrs and to celebrate mysteries of the faith. In this connection, St. Basil says very well: “Just as dyers prepare the material to be dyed by certain processes beforehand and only when this has been done do they color it with purple or some other color: likewise if the unfading glory of the just is to be ours for all time we shall first be prepared by these external rites and then we shall master the teachings and mysteries of Faith. When we become accustomed to looking at the reflection of the sun in the water, we shall turn to gaze upon the sun itself. . . Certainly the essential function of a tree is to produce fruit in season; still the foliage that its branches also bear serves to adorn it. In the same way the primary fruit of the soul is truth itself; but the garb of natural culture is a welcome addition, just as leaves provide shade for the fruit and add to its beauty.** Thus Moses, a man of the greatest renown for his wisdom, is said to have come to the contemplation of Him, Who is, only after being trained in Egyptian lore. So later the wise Daniel is said to have been first schooled in Babylon in the wisdom of the Chaldeans, and only then to have come to know Divine Revelation.”**[44]
- We ourselves made the following statement in the first Encyclical Letter We wrote, Summi Pontificatus: “Persevering research carried out with laborious study, on the part of her missionaries of every age, has been undertaken in order to facilitate the deeper appreciative insight into the various civilizations and to utilize their good qualities to facilitate and render more fruitful the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. **Whatever there is in the native customs that is not inseparably bound up with superstition and error will always receive kindly consideration and, when possible, will be preserved intact.”[45] **
