60 years
of Nostra Aetate
On October 28, 1965, Pope St. Paul VI issued Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relation of the Catholic Church to Non-Christian Religions. Join Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the San Francisco Interfaith Council, and the American Jewish Committee for an interfaith dialogue on the Second Vatican Council’s document on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions.
March 25, 2026
5:30 p.m.
Cathedral of St. Mary Event Center
1111 Gough Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
Speakers
Rabbi Noam Marans
Rabbi Noam Marans is American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Director of Interreligious Affairs, heading the agency’s global interfaith outreach and advocacy. He served as chair of IJCIC, the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, world Jewry’s official dialogue partner with the Vatican, Ecumenical Patriarchate, World Council of Churches, World Evangelical Alliance, and other bodies.
He has participated in multiple audiences with Pope Francis and served as the lead Jewish speaker in programs convened by the pontiff on the environment and education. He expanded AJC’s engagement with Muslims, Latino Evangelicals, and Latter-day Saints, and spearheaded constructive engagement of the controversial Oberammergau Passion Play, successfully collaborating with the play’s leadership toward elimination of its historically anti-Jewish elements.
Before arriving at AJC in 2001, he served for sixteen years as rabbi of Temple Israel in Ridgewood, NJ. He earned a B.A. in political science at Columbia University and an M.A. and Rabbinical Ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was recognized with the Seton Hall University Sister Rose Thering Award for Outstanding Service in Education for Interreligious Harmony and is a past president of the Northern New Jersey Board of Rabbis.
Rabbi Noam Marans
Father Dennis McManus
Fr. Dennis McManus is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ consultant for Jewish Affairs and is Professor of Dogmatics at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University. A priest of the Archdiocese of Mobile in Alabama, he is widely known for his work on liturgy and interreligious dialogue. Fr. McManus has written widely on liturgical topics but specialized in the application of liturgical translation theory, the development of the Rites of Exorcism, and Judaism in the Roman Rite. He was a member of both the Vatican-Baptist dialogue (2007-2012) and the USCCB-Reform Churches dialogue, which issued a historic joint agreement on the form and recognition of baptism (2012).
From 1997 to 2006, he served as USCCB Associate Director of the Secretariat for Liturgy. Pope St. John Paul II named him as consultor and theologian to the newly established Vox Clara commission of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, on which he has served since 2001; Pope Benedict XVI then appointed Fr. McManus as a consultor to the Congregation in 2010 and then as peritus to the Vox Clara Commission. In addition, he has served as professor of Liturgy at Conception Abbey Seminary, the Dominican House of Studies, Dunwoodie Seminary, St. John the Evangelist Seminary in Boston, and Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, MD.
Fr. McManus holds a bachelor’s degree in classical languages and philosophy from St. Mary’s College of California, a master’s degree in ethics from Georgetown University, and a doctorate in historical theology from Drew University.
