Pope Paul VI announced today that his encyclical letter–the first since he became the supreme head of the Catholic Church–will deal, among other matters, with the relations between the Catholic church and non-Christian religions. He said that he completed the encyclical and that he will issue it this weekend.
Without mentioning specifically relations between the Church and the Jewish people–an issue expected to come before the next session of the Ecumenical Council to convene on September 14–Pope Paul expressed his hope that the encyclical “will find good acceptance beyond the frontiers of the Church, since the tone which inspired the encyclical letter also reaches beyond the Church’s frontiers.”
The Pontiff stressed that the encyclical will not deal with theological or doctrinal questions, since those are fields that will be treated by the Ecumenical Council.
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