Forty years to the day after Pope Paul VI condemned anti-Semitism in the Catholic church and declared that Jews could not be held responsible for the killing of Jesus, Catholic and Jewish leaders gathered at the Newark Archdiocesan Center on Oct. 28 to commemorate the pronouncement and hail its spirit of tolerance and understanding.

The half-hour event was held before a small audience of Catholic and Jewish clergy in the center’s auditorium, with three New Jersey rabbis sitting alongside two priests who have been active in the church’s interfaith movement, Monsignor John Gilchrist, chair of interreligious affairs at the archdiocese, and Father Lawrence Frizzell, a professor at the Institute for Judeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange.

Leading off the observance of the issuance of “Nostra Aetate,” as the landmark declaration was called, was Archbishop John J. Myers of the Newark Archdiocese. He told the gathering that “sometimes profound changes in history take time to be understood and to be accepted.”

Recalling a time 40 years ago when he was a divinity student in Rome, Myers said he viewed the issuance of “Nostra Aetate” as “one of the most momentous days in the religious history of two world faiths.”

To Myers, the 40th anniversary observance was also a time to salute a local connection to the Vatican’s declaration, embodied in the work of the late Monsignor John J. Oesterreicher.

Oesterreicher, who was born a Jew in what was then Czechoslovakia, converted to Catholicism and became a priest. He was the first director of the Judeo-Christian Institute at Seton Hall and, according to Myers, was “one of the architects” of the portion of “Nostra Aetate” exculpating the Jewish people for the killing of Jesus.

Oesterreicher “continued to foster understanding and cooperation based on the two religions’ common history until his death in 1993,” said the archbishop.

“‘Nostra Aetate’ declared that any attempt to present the Jews as rejected or accursed by God was wrong,” said Allyson Gall, executive director of the American Jewish Committee’s New Jersey area, who followed the archbishop at the podium. “No longer could any negative attitudes toward Jews or Judaism, much less anti-Semitism in any form, overt or subtle, be justified.”

“Think of it,” she concluded: “A particular people once viewed as rejected and condemned is now seen in the words of the pope as ‘the dearly beloved elder brother of the church.’”

Acknowledging that after 40 years, there are still “issues which have not been resolved,” Myers suggested that Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, represented a “continuance” of the ecumenical outreach promoted by his predecessor, John Paul II.

“Absolutely,” said Gall from the podium. “It takes a long time — decades, more than decades — to have it filter down to everyone.

But, she continued, “I’ve seen in the dialogue with the archdiocese in the last 20 years that it has really filtered down in New Jersey.”

In answer to a reporter’s question, both participants played down what many feared would be the negative impact of The Passion of the Christ, the blockbuster 2004 movie that many critics said told a version of the Gospels that renewed charges holding the Jews responsible for Jesus’ persecution and crucifixion.

“I think the film was a matter of art,” said the archbishop. “I don’t think it affected the overall trajectory of growth in our relationships.”

Gall suggested that the movie even reinvigorated Jewish-Catholic dialogue. “I believe actually that all the interactions we had with Catholics and Protestants after the movie ended up with us making lemonade out of a lemon….” The film, she continued, prompted many conversations that led to improved understanding between the two groups. The AJC leader also noted that “the archdiocese’s good response at the time the film came out was very helpful to us.”

Rabbi Neil Borovitz of Temple Shalom in River Edge, who was joined at the ceremony by Rabbis Daniel Cohen of Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange and Douglas Sagal of Temple Emanu-El in Westfield, said he saw The Passion on its opening day with leaders of the archdiocese and the Protestant National Council of Churches.

“It actually became a spark for some very serious positive dialogue between Jews and Christians — Protestants and Catholics,” said the rabbi from his front-row seat in the audience. “They actually understood our pain.”