Two major events that bracket the past decade like a set of bookends are the Vatican Declaration on the Jews (Nostra Aetate No. 4) in 1965 and “Guidelines for the Implementation of Nostra Aetate No. 4,” issued in January, 1975.

There are two striking aspects to these events that immediately invite comment. First, they are both Catholic developments; there seem to have been no comparable developments of similar import for Christian-Jewish relations during this entire decade in Protestant and Orthodox Christianity—certainly none that come to mind as strikingly as do the two Catholic documents. Second, it took a full decade’ for the Catholic Church to issue instructions to its faithful to guide and encourage the implementation of Nostra Aetate.