The Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding of Sacred Heart University: An Example of Fostering Dialogue and Understanding

Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, 1965), and subsequent documents, Guidelines and Suggestions (1974), Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Catholic Church (1985), and We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (1998), prepared the path for a theological and educational agenda that was both corrective (the purging of anti-Jewish material from textbooks, catechisms, and preaching) and provided an opportunity for renewal, especially in the growth in theological study and dialogue between Christians and Jews. Since the founding of the first Interfaith Center in 1953, the Institute for Judeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University (IJCS), dialogue between Christians and Jews has become an essential priority of Christian churches. Today, there are twenty-seven centers of interreligious dialogue and education operating in the United States. The history of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding of Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut, provides a good view of the way such centers have engaged in interreligious dialogue and education