As the former executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), Rabbi Mark Dratch is no stranger to meeting with world leaders across the globe, which likely helped him prepare for a private meeting that he recently had with Pope Leo XIV, newly elected pope of the Vatican and the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.
Rabbi Dratch is the chairperson of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), a coalition of major Jewish organizations that represents the Jewish community in its official relations with other world religious bodies. It plays a key role in interfaith dialogue, particularly with the Vatican, the World Council of Churches and other prominent religious institutions.
IJCIC’s core mission is to represent the Jewish people in dialogue with other world religions, primarily Christianity and, to a lesser extent, Islam. It aims to foster mutual understanding, respect and cooperation between Jews and members of other faiths. And finally, it provides a unified Jewish voice in interreligious consultations and partnerships on ethical and social issues.
I admit that I knew very little about this organization until I began researching it more deeply. Its member organizations include a broad spectrum of the Jewish community, representing Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular Jewish groups: the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), B’nai B’rith International, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the Orthodox Union (OU), the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), among others. The presidency of IJCIC rotates among the major member organizations. It’s rare that these disparate Jewish organizations get together on many issues, which is why the IJCIC is unique.
The Vatican has been the primary partner of IJCIC; the group has been in dialogue with the Vatican since the Second Vatican Council and the release of Nostra Aetate, which transformed Catholic teachings about Jews and Judaism.
IJCIC has played a historic role in post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian reconciliation, especially in helping shape and monitor the evolution of Catholic–Jewish relations. It is considered the official Jewish interlocutor for the Holy See.
Part of the reason for the Vatican entering into dialogue with the Jewish community was a sense of guilt the Catholic community had after the Holocaust—a sincere attempt to do teshuva, if you will. Also, the Vatican sees itself as a religion that evolved from Judaism, and the more that Catholics can understand the theology and the practices of the Jewish religion, the better they can understand and appreciate their own faith. This led to the establishment of IJCIC.
I had an opportunity to speak with Rabbi Dratch (who for several years was a pulpit rabbi in Stamford, Connecticut, where I live) about his historic meeting with Pope Leo XIV, and he shared some of his reflections about his trip to the Vatican.
“There were 200 representatives of all non-Catholic religions, Western and Eastern, that are in dialogue with the Church,” said Rabbi Dratch. “After the pope’s initial remarks, we each had a brief moment to speak with the pope personally. When it was my turn, I introduced myself and thanked him for his dedication to Jewish-Catholic dialogue. I told him that we were looking forward to resolving some of the issues we have had and to moving forward. He smiled, he said thank you, and that was the end of it.”
Rabbi Dratch said that he and the rest of the group officially follow the guidelines of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik with respect to interfaith dialogue, which the rav outlined in the famous article, “Confrontation,” that appeared in Tradition Journal in 1963. Often the line between what is considered a theological issue, which the rav prohibited, and a non-theological issue, which he permitted, can be blurry because people of faith, said Rabbi Soloveitchik, address all matters in a language of faith.
Rabbi Dratch is encouraged about the possibilities of improved relations with the church under the leadership of the new pope, “In his public address, he spoke about building bridges and continuing the dialogue with our community. He also acknowledged that recently there have been tensions and challenges. I think this is promising. He is also an American from Chicago, and he knows Jews and has been exposed to Jews, which I think could bode well for us. We’ll see.”
Some folks in the Jewish community wonder why we should care what Pope Leo XIV thinks about us, but Rabbi Dratch disagrees. “We live in this world as human beings, and we are responsible to confront the world as human beings, not just as Jews.”
Rabbi Dratch believes that Pope Leo is a savvier politician and diplomat than Pope Francis was and will be more careful with his words than the prior pope, who was viewed by many people as anti-Israel after Oct. 7. “He has to engage in a careful balancing act,” said Rabbi Dratch. “We will see how it evolves. We can’t expect the pope to be more Jewish in his approach than the Jews.”
Rabbi Dratch feels that there are also other issues that the Jewish community should be concerned about vis-à-vis the Catholic Church and the new pope. “We share a lot of similar concerns with the Catholic community with respect to religious liberty and freedom,” he said. “Also, there are common global issues like terrorism, ecology, economics, education and immigration that we as Jews must have on our agenda. If we are seen as only being concerned with antisemitism and Israel, then we are going to fail on both issues with them. When we are part of the larger conversation, then we gain the respect of others—and we have a better chance of moving things forward.”
Rabbi Dratch is planning a meeting with Vatican representatives in Jerusalem in November, to mark the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate.
Michael Feldstein, who lives in Stamford, is the author of “Meet Me in the Middle” (meet-me-in-the-middle-book.com), a collection of essays on contemporary Jewish life. He can be reached at michaelgfeldstein@gmail.com.
