On April 1-2, a conference brought together Jewish and Catholic scholars to discuss faith as the foundation of ethical teachings. Both traditions base their ethics on belief in a single, all-powerful God and the importance of ethical conduct.
Jewish ethics are centered on the Torah and mitzvot, which are the 613 commandments Jews must observe. Catholic ethics focus on the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount/Plain, natural law, human dignity, love, justice and the common good, while also incorporating virtue ethics and Catholic social teaching.
The conference took place in Rome in collaboration with the Camille and Sandy Kress Project. Titled “Jews and Catholics on Ethics: A Light to the Nations,” this series of conferences underscored the significance of faith traditions in global contexts. It is part of a three-year collaborative project to foster Jewish-Catholic dialogue on theology, anthropology and ethics. Catholic and Jewish scholars from across the globe assembled at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, known as the “Angelicum,” with the aim of deepening the theological grounds of Jewish-Catholic dialogue, as advocated by Pope Saint Paul VI in his 1965 declaration “Nostra Aetate.”
Two of the main scholars speaking at the event were Judith Wolfe, professor of philosophical theology at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, and Shira Billet, assistant professor of Jewish thought and ethics at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York.
“Christians believe that the world was created by God as a free outpouring of the love that constitutes His own triune life,” Wolfe said. “In this world, the deepest calling of humans is to learn to receive and share this love, and so to be drawn ever more deeply into the divine life. It is on this basic sense that the Christian ethical vision rests.”
Billet said, “Ethics includes visions of the good life, ideals of human virtue, and values and norms governing human interactions. Jewish ethics rest on the belief that the human being was created in the image of God, and on the further belief that God communicated ethical norms and values to human beings through created human nature and through revelation and tradition.”
Commenting on the writings of Rabbi Akiva, a first-century Jewish scholar and martyr, Billet said, “Beloved is the human being who was created in the image of God. God loves human beings insofar as human beings are created in the image of God. When God said to Noah and his sons, ‘In the image of God, the human being was created,’ the verse is a prohibition against murder. God also spoke the moral norm that follows from it, which is, you cannot destroy the image of God in another human being.”
Wolfe said Christians are called to express “the plentitude and generosity of God toward others” and described the love of a trinitarian God that “already defines the divine life in itself; the love between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, discussed how both religions “have their common origins in revelation” and that joint reflection on ethics is needed in this current cultural and political climate.
He added, “As Pope Francis stated, ‘Jews and Christians share a rich spiritual heritage which allows us to do much together. At a time when the West is exposed to a depersonalizing secularism, it falls to believers to seek out each other and cooperate in making divine love more visible for humanity.’”
Father Joseph D. Wallace is diocesan director of Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs and pastor of Christ the Redeemer Parish, Atco.
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