59:41
Irapuato
745
Prof. John Connelly on the life of Monsignor John Oesterreicher. JBS on Apr 15, 2015 Professor of History at UC, Berkeley and author of "From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on …More
Prof. John Connelly on the life of Monsignor John Oesterreicher.

JBS on Apr 15, 2015 Professor of History at UC, Berkeley and author of "From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews" John Connelly speaks at Fairfield University on the life of Monsignor John Oesterreicher and the way he impacted the Catholic view of Judaism. Monsignor John Maria Oesterreicher (2 February 1904 – 18 April 1993), born Johannes Oesterreicher, was a Roman Catholic theologian and a leading advocate of Jewish-Catholic reconciliation.[1] He was one of the architects of Nostra aetate or "In Our Age," which was issued by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and which repudiated antisemitism.[2] Oesterreicher was born to a Jewish family in Město Libavá (Stadt Liebau) in Moravia (then part of Austria[3] and now the Czech Republic). He was a convert to Roman Catholicism, who became a priest in 1927.[3] He served as a chaplain in Gloggnitz and there he founded the local Scout group and served at its chaplain.[2][4]
He was active as an anti-Nazi activist in the 1930s. In 1934 he founded the newspaper Die Erfüllung ("The fruition") in order to improve the relation between Judaism and Christianity and to fight against antisemitism.[2][5][6] He founded together with Georg Bichlmair SJ the Pauluswerk in Vienna.[3][6] The Pauluswerk was a community for Converts from Judaism to Roman Catholicism and prayed for Christianization of Jews.[2][6]