During a recent conference in Rome titled “Towards the Future: Re-Thinking Nostra Aetate Today,” Prof. Dr. Elias Halabi represented the World Council of Churches and its Reference Group on Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation as its co-moderator.
Prof. Dr Elias Halabi, co-moderator of the World Council of Churches Reference Group on interreligious dialogue and cooperation, Photo: Pontificia Universita Gregoriana
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Held at the Pontifical Gregorian University and organized by the Centre for Interreligious Studies, the three-day conference marked the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate.
It brought together leading scholars and representatives of Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish academic institutions for a series of in-depth discussions and reflections.
Participants reflected on how Nostra Aetate might be “written” today—within a very different historical and cultural context, and amid new complexities and forms of religious pluralism.
Photo: Pontificia Universita Gregoriana
Traditions once considered peripheral have gained prominence, while entirely new challenges have emerged on the global horizon.
Halabi’s contribution was entitled “Nostra Aetate In Our Time.” It elaborated on the crucial role the Nostra Aetate document has played in setting the foundations of the interreligious dialogue in modern times.
“In our Center for Christian – Muslim Studies at the University of Balamand, we have included the Nostra Aetate document in the Masters Program because we believe that this document is instrumental in setting the foundations for interfaith relations in the second half of the twentieth century,” he said. “In order to give Nostra Aetate the credit it deserves, there is a need to locate this document in its time and context.”
Photo: Pontificia Universita Gregoriana
He also posed the question of what should be the way forward. “In our time, religion is not only implicated in few problems around the world,” he said. “Religion today is providing the underlying script of most political endeavors and other claims and ambitions.”
He posited that, in our time, religion needs to be the voice of peace in justice. “All these forms of sustainable peace are doomed if they fail to acknowledge the principle of justice,” Halabi said. “Peace is built on the right and not on the might.”
Photo: Pontificia Universita Gregoriana
“WCC Reference Group for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation maps future vision” (WCC feature story, December 2024)
“Prof. Dr Michalis Marioras reflects on how interreligious dialogue becomes transformative” (WCC interview, October 2025)
Learn more about the WCC interreligious work
Current Dialogue – World Council of Churches’ journal on interreligious dialogue
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