Mission Statement:
“Building mutual respect, understanding, and appreciation among Jews, Catholics, and all people of good will by providing opportunities for interfaith education and dialogue.”
A Dynamic Partnership Between Jews and Catholics
Sponsoring Partners:
©Copyright Center for Catholic-
I am pleased to inform you that I have been selected to participate in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies summer seminar entitled “The Overlooked Revolution: The Shift in Catholic Teaching on the Jews since Vatican II.” I will be joining scholars from England, France, Canada and several American universities for this intense and important program in June.
Blessings and shalom,
Abe
Blessings and shalom,
Abe
The Next Important Step in Christian-Jewish Relations
Rabbi Michael J. Cook to Offer Clergy Workshop and Public Lecture on "Gospel Dynamics: Jews and Catholics Reading the New Testament” CLICK HERE for details
An Hour of Rememberance
An interreligious service commemorating
Yom Hasoah
An interreligious service commemorating
Yom Hasoah
On Sunday, April 14, 2013, at 2:30 PM, the Diocese of Venice, Florida presented an Hour of Remembrance commemorating the Holocaust.
CLICK HERE to view the remarks that guest speaker Dr Abraham J. Peck, Director, Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University made at the event.
Video of March 19, 2013 “Muslim Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust” Presentation by Professor Mehnaz Afridi
NOTE: this video runs best on either the Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers.
CLICK HERE for a free download of the Chrome Browser for WINDOWS and MAC
CLICK HERE for a free download of the Mozilla Firefox Browser for WINDOWS
CLICK HERE for a free download of the Mozilla Firefox Browser for MAC
A Liberation Seder: Jewish, Muslim and Christian Reflections
More than 100 guests, Jews, Christians and Muslims, participated in the annual model Passover Seder sponsored by the Saint Leo University Ministry and the Center for Catholic-
This year’s Seder was highlighted by the introduction of a new resource:
Exodus Conversations
How the Story of the Exodus Speaks to Jews, Christians, and Muslims:
An Interfaith Commentary and Passover Haggadah
The discussion themes in the Exodus Conversations were created by Jewish, Catholic and Muslim scholars including the Center for Catholic-
A World of Sanity and Sometimes Terrible Evil
Professor Robert H. Bardach is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Saint Leo University’s Department of Education. In attending the Center’s three part speaker series on “To Save One Life: Catholic and Muslim Rescuers of Jews in the Holocaust,” Professor Bardach ,who holds a doctoral degree in Organizational Management and Leadership and participated in a 2 year Post-
This is what Professor Bardach wrote about his painting:
After attending a lecture series sponsored by the Center for Catholic-
In a Jewish household it is customary for a husband to bring flowers to his wife and family at the end of the day on Friday to help bring the spirit of the Sabbath into his home. This painting entitled ‘Flowers for Shabbat’ was intended to depict a brief moment on a cold Friday evening, where the man’s memory of a simple tradition on Shabbat allows for the connection to those he loved and lost in the most tragic of conditions. As the man gazes through the fence he is reminded that the world is a place of sanity, at times interrupted by the irrationality of terrible Evil. Not the other way around.
CLICK HERE for close up of painting
Dear Friends,The Center for Catholic –Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University, like the rest of the nation, is still in shock and mourning over the senseless loss of life and horrific injuries that took place at the end of the Boston Marathon on Patriot’s Day.
This act of terrorism allegedly carried out by two young brothers, immigrants to America from a region of the world that has been a veritable war zone since the end of the Soviet Union more than twenty years ago, may or may not have been influenced by sources outside the United States. But we know that religion played a major role in shaping the direction of the brothers’ lives and perhaps their violent actions.
We know that they saw America’s involvement in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as a declaration of war on Islam. We know that one of the brothers objected violently to statements during a Friday prayer service that it was appropriate for someone to be a Muslim and to observe American secular holidays.
Catholics and Jews in America have not been immune to those same feelings. Both communities have lived with the tension between a religious and a national identity and have faced accusations of dual allegiances. Yet both communities have overcome those issues to find a comfortable seat at the table of established American religious life and, indeed, to play prominent roles in shaping the direction of its future.
But we need to do more. We need to reach out to those communities who have only recently established themselves as part of the American religious framework in the past half century and who face those same tensions and those same accusations. We need to provide them with the assurance that one can be part of a religious life and still be an American. That what religion teaches us about a moral and ethical direction, about our sense of social justice and the equality of all human beings in the eyes of a creator is what lies at the heart of the American idea. One can be a good Jew, a good Catholic, a good Protestant, a good Muslim, a good Hindu, a good Buddhist and a great American.
