Nostra Aetate turns sixty: the Holy See makes interreligious dialogue a “journey of hope”

On 16 September 2026, the Holy See released a note entitled "A Journey of Hope: Sixty Years of Interreligious Dialogue and Fraternity in the Light of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate". Fruit of the joint work of three dicasteries of the Curia — the Doctrine of the Faith, the Promotion of Christian Unity, and Interreligious Dialogue — this text of about eight thousand six hundred words was approved by Pope Leo XIV on 22 June 2026. It marks the sixtieth anniversary of the conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate, promulgated on 28 October 1965.

The note presents interreligious dialogue as a "journey of hope" for humanity. It specifies that such dialogue does not aim to found "a great world religion", but to build "a fraternal society capable of accepting differences". It calls for a renewed change of mentality, for a "new ethics of dialogue" and a "pedagogy of dialogue".

It ties this dialogue to religious liberty and declares itself aligned with the conciliar declaration Dignitatis Humanae, which it says "declared religious liberty a human right": no respectful relationship with other religions, it affirms, would be sincere without a corresponding respect for the religious liberty of others. It deplores the hostility shown to Muslims and demands religious liberty in Muslim-majority countries. Its publication comes shortly before two appointments: the signing, on 28 September at Metz, of a joint declaration by Leo XIV with the leaders of France's religions, then the fortieth anniversary of the Assisi interreligious meeting, at the end of October.

What tradition teaches

The first of the commandments suffers no sharing. "You shall adore Me, the true God, but you shall have no worship for strange gods," teaches the Catechism of the Council of Trent. The same Catechism ranks among the sinners against this commandment "those who fall into heresy, who believe not what holy Church our mother proposes to us for belief". And it recalls the crime of the Samaritans, "who adored at the same time both the God of Israel and the divinities of the nations", with the reproach the prophet Elias addressed to the people: "How long do you halt between two sides?"

The measure

The note guards against the crudest syncretism: it expressly refuses to found "a great world religion", and this must be acknowledged. But the "fraternal society capable of accepting differences" it substitutes for it sets the religions on a footing of equal legitimacy, and the religious liberty it erects into a right holds also for the profession of false religions. Yet this is precisely the sharing the first commandment forbids. One may, one must, love the persons of every religion and treat them with justice.

But error has no rights, and truth has only one: to be adored alone. To tolerate persons is not to grant false worships a right. To adore "at the same time" the true God and to let "the divinities of the nations" subsist alongside Him, to halt between two sides — this is what Scripture and the Catechism call a sin against the first commandment, not a journey of hope.

That the note leans on Dignitatis Humanae to proclaim religious liberty "a human right" does not change the measure: it is the 1965 text that must justify itself before the commandment, and not the reverse. The charity owed to men does not make their religions ways to God.

What the faithful must retain

The faithful owes every man respect and charity, whatever his religion; he owes no false religion the homage of holding it a way to God. The fraternity of persons is real; the equality of religions is a mirage. There is but one Name, but one Church, but one worship pleasing to the Father; the rest is human benevolence, precious, but which does not save. Before the interreligious signatures now announced, we will hold firm to this distinction: welcome the man, never level the truth.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the First Commandment; the reproach of the prophet Elias, "How long do you halt between two sides?" (3 Kings, XVIII, 21).