In the first interfaith dialogue of its kind, the nation’s leading Catholic and Jewish scholars and interfaith leaders participated in a conference sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to discuss Eastern Catholic Churches and their relationship to Judaism, Israel and the Roman Catholic Church.
ADL convened the groundbreaking gathering in order for Catholic and Jewish leaders to learn together about the commonalities and distinctions between the Roman Catholic Church – which has been engaged in positive dialogue with the Jewish people since the 1965 Second Vatican Council – and the lesser known Eastern Catholic Churches, a group of more than 20 individual Catholic churches around the world which have their own histories, liturgy, traditions and theology about Judaism but which are ecclesiastically united with the pope in Rome. They include the Melkite, Maronite, Ukraninan, Ethiopian, Chaldean and Syro-Malabar CatholicChurches.
