Media Releases

Media Release

Jeremy Jones, Director of International and of Community Affairs for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, participated in the 24th meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee [ILC], which was held in Rome, Italy, from 13-16 May 2019.

The ILC is a partnership between the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations [IJCIC], which is the coalition of the world’s Jewish communal organisations charged with official relations with other world religious bodies

Jones is the only Jewish Australian who has ever participated in this elite international interfaith meeting, and this year co-chaired, with Professor Joseph Sievers, the Catholic-Jewish Working Group on Combatting Antisemitism, a role he also filled at the 2016 ILC in Warsaw.

Although the bulk of the meeting consisted of intensive discussions and strategising, off-site sessions included an audience with Pope Francis, a formal opening which included discussions with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and a visit to a refugee centre managed and led by the Sant’Egidio Community.

“The ILC is testimony to the dramatic changes in Catholic-Jewish relations over the past 50 years, where we now see ourselves as allies addressing a range of social issues”, Jones said.

“Particularly over the past 30 or so years, the relationship has matured and deepened”, he added.

“Having been present at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney when Pope John Paul II first described antisemitism as sinful and now working with dedicated Catholic partners to confront this evil, I have been an eyewitness to a sea-change in attitudes and actions”, Jones noted.

Jeremy Jones is a delegate of the American Jewish Committee to IJCIC.

For additional information, contact AIJAC on (03)-9681-6660.