E/CN.4/2000/65 page 35 D. Position in relation to communities in the area of religion and belief 135. This position is best seen from two basic angles, inter-religious dialogue and evangelization. The Vatican bodies dealing with inter-religious dialogue are as follows: (a) The Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, whose mandate covers all religious communities except for Jews and non-Catholic Christians; (b) The Commission for Religious Relations with Jews; (c) The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. On the question of evangelization, the relevant body is the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Of course, the question of evangelization overlaps that of inter-religious dialogue. 1. Inter-religious dialogue 136. The Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue (set up in 1964 as the Secretariat for Non-Christians and assuming its present title in 1988), as stipulated in Pastor Bonus (John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution of 28 June 1988), “fosters suitable dialogue with the followers of other religions and encourages various kinds of relations with them. It promotes appropriate studies and conferences to develop mutual information and esteem, so that human dignity and the spiritual and moral riches of people may ever grow. The Council sees to the formation of those who engage in this kind of dialogue.” 137. The Council fosters dialogue with established world religions as well as with traditional religions. The Vatican II Council - especially the 1965 Declaration Nostra Aetate - constituted a turning point, ushering in a new approach by the Catholic Church to other religions. The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) states as follows: “In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely the relationship with non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this Declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship. One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the Earth. One also is their final goal, God.” 138. With regard to other religions, Nostra Aetate, in paragraph 2, refers explicitly to Hinduism and Buddhism, and adds that: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.”