I had high hopes for this talk by Gavin D’Costa, as it’s such an impossibly broad topic to cover in 1 hour that it would either require someone to be an intelligent and accomplished speaker or it would need someone planning to talk really fast and hope for the best. Luckily, we got option 1. It was like being back at university again, with a really entertaining lecturer who everyone loved to listen to. After so much time immersed in primary school academics, it was a real breath of fresh air.

To go through it all very quickly and not to do it justice at all – as no 18-line summary could possibly do it justice – it turns out there is a 2-page section of Vatican II that is devoted to talking about other religions. What is interesting is that this section came about either completely by accident, or by the workings of the Holy Spirit – take your pick. Pope John XXIII had a “providential encounter” with a Jewish historian called Jules Isaac, a French Holocaust survivor, who convinced him that to prevent the Holocaust happening again the Catholic Church should stamp out the idea that the Jews were either perfidious or Christ-killers. Fair point. He pointed out that some of the worst atrocities against the Jews happened in Catholic countries such as Poland. 

Pope John XXIII was already sympathetic to Jews. He saved thousands of them in World War 2 through diplomatic means. He now penned a statement saying that Jesus, his mother, his disciples and the early Christians were all Jews, and while some Jewish authorities had pressed for the death of Christ, “neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during His Passion”. He added: “the Church deplores all hatreds, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism levelled at any time or from any source against the Jews”.

So far so good. Then Catholic bishops in the Middle East raised a hand and said if you are going to say something good about Jews but not about Islam, that is going to make life very difficult for us. So a section was added about Islam. Then African and Asian bishops raised their hands and said “hang on what about Buddhism and Hinduism”, so again lines were added about them. 

Prof Gavin D’Costa, the speaker, was keen emphasise that these were his thoughts and we were perfectly entitled to disagree with him.  He was also keen to take questions. These included: “Did this mean it was the democratisation of the church?”, and “if Jesus only came once for all of creation, does that include aliens?”. Gavin is clearly a man with an open and enquiring mind, who enjoys engaging with such questions. Unfortunately, I don’t have as good a brain as he does and I promptly forgot his replies, which is a shame, because they were very good.

One thing I did regret was that no time was given to dealing with the ways in which the Catholic Church did try to help the Jews and resist Naziism during World War 2. The talk gave the impression that no help was given, which isn’t quite accurate – although, to be fair, that’s another massive and quite contentious subject. Maybe for his next one hour talk he could cover that – or some other impossibly large topic!

After the talk we had a delicious ploughman’s-style meal where good food and good conversations were very happy dinner companions. It was a very entertaining and thought-provoking evening.  Many thanks to Prof D’Costa, Deacon Robert and all who helped organise it.

Original event: Talk by Gavin D’Costa on Vatican II, the Catholic Church and the World Religions