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Nostra Aetate And The Religious Literacy Of Catholic Students, Cyndi Nienhaus Csa

Journal of Catholic Education

In this article, I take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council to reassess one of its major products, the declaration Nostra Aetate (“In Our Time”). Following a brief introduction to Nostra Aetate, I describe my experience teaching an undergraduate course on Jewish-Christian Relations built around the document’s recommendations for interfaith dialogue. Through open dialogue about religious beliefs, prejudices, and stereotypes, students made great strides in developing religious literacy, defined by Prothero (2007) as “the ability to understand and use in one’s day-to-day life the basic building blocks of religious traditions” (p. 14). I explore the …