Photo Courtesy of Marist School

ATLANTA—Under the stage lights at the Alliance Theatre, Brendan Murphy showed a packed audience an image of a statue from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  

On the facade of the famed landmark is a sculpture of a victorious Ecclesia (the Church) beside a blindfolded Synagoga symbolizing Judaism. This wasn’t just decorative. It portrayed the church’s perceived superiority over Judaism, an image repeated often in medieval European churches. The statue depicts how Christian tradition has, at times, contributed to anti-Jewish narratives, he said.  

Murphy then showed them a reimagined version of that sculpture that now sits on the Marist School campus in Atlanta, along with the original at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Here Ecclesia and Synagoga sit side by side and glance over a shoulder at the other’s sacred text. Pope Francis blessed the original work during his visit to Philadelphia. For Murphy, the sculpture has become a symbol of mutual respect and dialogue. 

During this two-hour lecture, Murphy traced the history of division between Judaism and Christianity, from the death of Jesus and writings of the Gospels to the Second Vatican Council and the image of Pope John Paul II’s prayerful visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a place of prayer and pilgrimage.  

Changes to Jewish Catholic relationships in recent decades are “one of the most upbeat stories,” he said.  

Murphy, a longtime Marist history teacher, has given this lecture some 30 times in the past year as the founder of the Bearing Witness Institute at Marist School.  

The work with the education-focused think tank has taken him across the country, and includes initiatives like Peace by Piece, which brings together for now Muslim and Christian high schoolers in Atlanta for fun and conversation. 

“We weren’t sitting in a classroom or participating in a planned debate about faith,” one student said, “but we were just a group of teenage girls laughing, asking questions, and connecting through something beautiful and shared.”

First anniversary of Bearing Witness 

The Bearing Witness Institute recently marked its one-year anniversary. Highlights from the past year included national lectures, a panel with Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., and other Catholic leaders at Atlanta’s Ahavath Achim Synagogue on one of the most sacred days of the Jewish calendar and creating a seminar for Catholic educators in partnership with a leading Jewish program, The Olga Lengyel Institute, a promoter of human rights. 

Rabbi Spike Anderson, the spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El, has invited Murphy to speak at his congregation three times since 2022, drawing hundreds of Jews and guests to the synagogue.  

He said the discussion led by Murphy is difficult, but it concludes with an “inspiring and hopeful” message. The ending “offers everybody a way forward and sort of a new day and a new age of Jewish Catholic relationships,” he said. Rabbi Anderson now sits on the institute’s advisory board, along with Bishop Joel M. Konzen, SM, and leaders from other religious traditions.  

The rabbi promotes the program, telling Jewish leaders across the country about its value. Its value is that here’s a devout Catholic talking about antisemitism rooted in church history, said Rabbi Anderson. The work is an example of the Jewish understanding of “T’shuvah,” he said, which requires both admitting responsibility and repairing harm to move forward in a better way. 

A 1989 graduate of St. Pius X High School, Murphy has taught at the independent Catholic school his entire teaching career. He credits “Night” by Elie Wiesel as the catalyst for his focus on Jewish and Christian relations. The book was a gift from a history professor at the University of Notre Dame just before graduation. In just over 100 pages, the memoir tells of Wiesel’s experiences as a 15-year-old Jewish boy in Nazi concentration camps. 

He started thinking about an intensive examination of the Holocaust when he realized the survey course of world history would not give him time to examine the era in depth. He designed the elective to spend a semester studying the Nazis in 1930s and 1940s Germany. 

As part of his class, twice a year, students are chosen by lottery to travel to Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland to reflect on the key places in Holocaust history. 

“I came home more open-minded, compassionate, and mature,” student Mary Myers Ryll said about the coursework. “I’ve learned that true understanding comes from listening to others’ stories and trying to see the world through their eyes.” 

Murphy teaches history not as memorizing facts but examining how people made choices with their lives.  

“That’s kind of what the study of history is about,” said Murphy. “It’s meant to kind of reach them, as I say, in that place where truth is kept, where they recognize their role, their place in all of this.”  

He now splits his time between outreach with the institute and the classroom.  

Learning to overcome misunderstanding 

Murphy, 54, a married father of two and a member of Mary Our Queen Church, Peachtree Corners, sees his work as bridging faith traditions through education and personal connections. 

Murphy talked about the institute’s mission as “building a classroom outside the school community.” 

“The Bearing Witness Institute is at its heart an educational initiative,” he said. “It’s meant to use learning as a way to overcome misunderstandings, to overcome prejudice, to overcome discrimination, and to build allies, to build friends, to build community” among people of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 

Brendan Murphy of Marist School’s Bearing Witness Institute presents a lecture on the history of the division between Judaism and Christianity at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in September. Photo Courtesy of Marist School

Murphy is a sought-after speaker for his talk tracing the origins of Christian antisemitism. Before his lecture in any city, he works to pair a Christian church with a nearby Jewish community to foster relationships between members.  

According to the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of Americans say there is a lot or some discrimination against Jews in our society. According to the May 2025 study, that is a decline of 10 percent since last year.  

He said many Christians react with “a devastating shock” about the history, that he traces to a historical misunderstanding of Scripture that has been twisted to justify collective Jewish guilt for Jesus’ death. Murphy tells the story relying on documents from the leaders of Catholic and Protestant churches, century-old books and biblical footnotes to ensure he presents history, not simply his point of view.  

A highlight for him is the nearly 60 years of efforts to repair that history, starting especially with Vatican II. The 1965 landmark document “Nostra Aetate” reshaped how the Catholic Church relates to Judaism, Islam and other faiths. Pope John Paul II was the first to call Jews “our dearly beloved brothers.” Every pope since has built on that foundation, fostering relationships with Jewish leaders and encouraging dialogue. Murphy said the institute’s goal is to highlight the theology of the document, its origins and promote it, because “it’s not getting down into the pews.” 

Murphy believes living the spirit of “Nostra Aetate” can be shown in simple acts of friendship. That’s why the institute brings high school students together for what Murphy called a “teenage version” of interfaith dialogue. Discussions are underway to build a middle school program that can be replicated around the country.  

However, recent global tensions have affected efforts. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023, the program has paused encounters with Jewish students. Still, about two dozen students from both Marist School and the Mohammed Schools of Atlanta have continued meeting. 

At one of these gatherings, the Muslim students decorated the hands of their visitors with henna, temporary body art, an example of how small moments build connections.  

It was such a cool cultural exchange, and “a reminder of how our differences can bring us together,” said 18-year-old Mary Myers Ryll, who dreams of becoming an elementary school teacher and is a leader at spiritual retreats with other Marist students. She’s learned “how important it is to grow by learning from others and stepping outside of my own bubble.”  

Ellen Milsaps, 17, a Marist student who plays on her school’s flag football team and hopes to study history or art history at university, said the exchange left a deep impression. She’s taken to heart how learning about another’s faith isn’t about comparison, but about curiosity and respect. “Sometimes the most meaningful understanding occurs in small, human moments.” 

A senior at Mohammed Schools of Atlanta who enjoys baking and plans to work in the medical field, Sidrah Mohamed, 18, said student meetings expanded her perspective too.  

“In a world where it seems everyone is against difference, it was a nice change of pace to see others so open to learning and understanding each other,” said Mohamed. “I learned that people who are different from me aren’t one dimensional and have so much more to them than what I grew up seeing and believing.”