Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion (1988)

Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion by the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1988

On June 24, 1985, the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews issued Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church. That document, like its predecessor, Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration “Nostra Aetate” (no. 4) (December 1, 1974), drew its inspiration from the Second Vatican Council and was intended to be an offering on the part of the Holy See to Catholics on how the Conciliar mandate can properly be fulfilled “in our time.”

The present document, in its turn, seeks to specify the catechetical principles established in the Notes with reference to depictions and presentations of the events surrounding the passion and death of Jesus, including but not limited to dramatic, staged presentations of Jesus’ death most popularly known as “passion plays.” The principles here invoked are applicable as the Guidelines suggest (ch. III) to “all levels of Christian instruction and education,” whether written (textbooks, teachers’ manuals, etc.) or oral (preaching, the mass media).

Criteria-for-the-Evaluation-of-Dramatizations-of-the-Passion-1988.pdf