Leo XIV's pledge to continue Vatican II’s dialogue with the Jewish people confirmed

Following the letter he received on the day of his election, Rabbi Noam Marans met Prevost, and presented him with an interfaith anti-semitism manual.

May 21, 2025

Following the letter he received on the day of his election, Rabbi Noam Marans met Prevost, and presented him with an interfaith anti-semitism manual.

During a Vatican audience on 19 May, Leo XIV met with Rabbi Noam Marans, Director of Interreligious Affairs at the American Jewish Committee (AJC), reinforcing the authenticity of a letter attributed to Prevost and dated the day of his election.

The letter, addressed to Marans and dated 8 May 2025, pledges to “continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate.”

Rabbi Marans publicly confirmed receipt of the letter in a JNS interview published 12 May. He again confirmed it following the audience, in column published 21 May in E-Jewish Philanthropy. This latter column recounts the message, the inauguration Mass and his subsequent meeting with Leo XIV at an interreligious audience.

Marans wrote that he personally thanked Leo XIV for the letter and presented him with a copy of Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition. He described the book as “a Catholic-Jewish initiative to counter antisemitism.”

The book is an A to Z catalogue of “antisemitic themes and tropes,” including uses of terms like “gaslighting,” “globalist,” “New World Order,” “Satan,” “stiff necks,” and “Zionists.”

Photos of the 19 May meeting were released by Vatican Media and shared on social media.

‘A new phase of Catholic-Jewish relations’

Marans characterised his exchange with Prevost as evidence of a new phase of Catholic-Jewish relations built on equality and mutual recognition.

AJC had previously stated that its representatives Marans and AJC liaison Lisa Palmieri-Billig met with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on 16 May 2025, and thanked the Holy See “for [Leo XIV’s] pledge, on his first day as Pontiff, to strengthen the Church's dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people.”

The letter and meeting with Parolin took place in the lead-up to Leo XIV’s inaugural Mass on 18 May, which Marans attended from a “front-row place of honor near to the altar” alongside other Jewish leaders and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The symbolism of the seating, and of the early correspondence, was not lost on Marans.

“An historic Catholic-Jewish relations papal letter is a great beginning, though it is not an end unto itself,” Marans wrote. He added that the “‘spirit of Nostra Aetate’ cannot survive without our joint efforts to assure its future.”

The AJC column also raised concerns about what Marans called “trending” suspicions of interreligious dialogue among conservative Catholic seminarians, and urged continued investment—financial and educational—in initiatives to secure Nostra Aetate’s legacy.

Leo XIV has not publicly commented on the letter, but in his second-day address to the cardinals, he cited Gaudium et Spes, Evangelii Gaudium, and renewd his “complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.”

Together, these signals suggest that Leo XIV intends to preserve and extend the trajectory set by Vatican II and his immediate predecessors.

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