37. Bonus Episode | Nostra Aetate at 60 — and Beyond with George Weigel

As one of the bonus episodes for Beyond Rome, we are sharing the opening keynote address from our conference, Called to Friendship: Nostra Aetate at 60.

Given by George Weigel, this keynote address illustrates Pope St. John Paul II as one of the greatest exemplars of Catholic-Jewish friendship and offers us ways to combat antisemitism today.

This opening keynote by George Weigel reflects on the profound spiritual dimensions of Catholic-Jewish relations through the lens of Pope John Paul II’s historic pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2000, when the Polish Pope prayed at the Western Wall during the Great Jubilee of the Incarnation. As we mark this providential convergence of anniversaries—60 years since Nostra Aetate, 25 years since that historic pilgrimage, the election of a new Pope Leo committed to Catholic Social Teaching, and our current Jubilee of Hope—the keynote argues that Catholic support for Israel and the Jewish people must be understood primarily as a spiritual and theological imperative with profound political implications. Drawing parallels between John Paul II’s transformative invocation of the Holy Spirit in Warsaw on Pentecost 1979 and the theological foundations of Jewish-Catholic dialogue today, the address demonstrates how authentic spiritual commitments rooted in God’s irrevocable covenant and the Church’s examination of conscience can unleash world-changing consequences, challenging Catholics to ground their approach not in political calculation but in the deeper theological truths that continue the Pentecost moment when the Spirit moved the Apostles to proclaim the Gospel to all nations.

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