Catholic-Jewish Dialogue finds common ground in Collier County

By Martin Gauthier, Catholic-Jewish Dialogue Catholic co-chair, and Leslie Wasserman, Jewish co-chair

There’s an old joke — indeed, even a whole category of jokes — about a priest, a rabbi and a minister walking into a bar. The punch lines usually focus on the sheer incongruity of such religious leaders actually choosing to spend time together.

Here in Naples, such gatherings are no joke.

For more than two decades, Catholic and Jewish lay leaders — joined by local priests and rabbis as well as congregants from both faiths, and beyond — have met monthly to discuss their shared values and beliefs, find common ground and build bridges across lines that all too often divide.

The Catholic-Jewish Dialogue of Collier County’s signature event is an early-November commemoration of Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass), which historians consider the start of the Holocaust. This year’s event, featuring keynote speaker Rabbi David Maayan of Saint Leo University Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 5 at St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Golden Gate. To register, visit https://jfgn.regfox.com/kristallnacht-2023-program.

Across the country, such interfaith conversations took root after the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 release of Nostra Aetate, a treatise on interreligious relations that rejected antisemitism and highlighted the Catholic Church’s close ties to Judaism.

Locally, three organizers spearheaded the Collier County initiative, with each having participated in similar efforts elsewhere before moving to Southwest Florida: the late Rabbi Howard Greenstein of Jewish Congregation of Marco Island; Ann Jacobson, the group’s first Jewish cochair; and Joan Dunham, its first Catholic co-chair.

A shared understanding of the inherent differences between the two faiths is critical to our group’s work. We strive to listen, not persuade; educate, not proselytize; and agree to disagree.

That said, participants quickly realize that there is far more in common between the two seemingly disparate faiths and their adherents, from rituals and liturgy to similarities in clerical clothing.

“As we seek to go outside ourselves and serve the world with a common purpose, we will undoubtedly learn more about each other, and grow closer together in the process,” Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory said in a March 2022 address at the Jewish Theological Seminary. “We have many, many objectives that both of our faiths hold dear, and working together toward a common goal that benefits humanity can only help to unite us.”

In that spirit, our Kristallnacht event alternates locations between synagogues and churches each year, with a Jewish guest speaker appearing in church and a Catholic keynote speaker at the Jewish temple.

We share leadership responsibilities equally, with a 50-50 participation rate and support from sponsoring organizations that include the Diocese of Venice in Florida, the Holocaust Museum & Janet G. and Harvey D. Cohen Education Center, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Jewish Federation of Greater Naples.

Through guest speakers, book discussions, films, field trips, and more, we explore the social, cultural, theological and liturgical links between Judaism and Catholicism. Titles explored include

“Jesus: First-Century Rabbi” and the film “Stolen Summer,” a poignant story of the friendship between two young boys, one Jewish, the other Catholic.

Such friendships deeply inform the work of our all-volunteer group, both the current friendships we forge across boundaries as well as the more formative ones from our youth.

In the case of Martin Gauthier, it was the countless hours spent with his childhood friend, Mark Wolfson, in Manchester, New Hampshire. More than 75 years after the conversation, I still vividly recall his descriptions of the horrors of the Holocaust, my 6-year-old mind struggling to understand the sheer inhumanity.

For Leslie Wasserman, growing up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood in Long Island, New York meant early exposure to the mysteries of Catholicism, from taking Communion to the Sacrament of Penance, better known as confession.

At a time when the country’s divisions capture most of the attention, and bad behavior goes viral regularly, the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue of Collier County has seen a surge of recent interest. That’s a promising indicator that our members — and the broader Southwest Florida community — continue to yearn for a deeper understanding of the forces that bring us together, not drive us further apart.