On December 16, 1968, the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews promulgated a document titled "De Iudaeis." Its operative sentence was a single line: "The Edict of Expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 is hereby revoked." The original edict, issued by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, had given Jews four months to convert to Christianity or leave the kingdom. Its revocation came 476 years, four months, and two days later.
The act was largely symbolic. No living person remained exiled under the 1492 order. Spain itself had informally allowed Jews to return in the 19th century. The revocation's power lay in its source: the highest doctrinal body of the Roman Catholic Church, the Second Vatican Council. It was part of a broader document, *Nostra aetate*, which aimed to repudiate the charge of deicide against Jews and promote interfaith dialogue. The gesture acknowledged historical ecclesiastical complicity in anti-Semitism.
One might assume the Spanish monarchy issued the revocation. It did not. The Vatican acted independently, highlighting that the original sin was not merely a political decree but one endorsed by the Church's authority. The Spanish government did not formally repeal the Alhambra Decree until 1969, and it offered a full apology only in 1992.
The impact was theological, not practical. It represented a profound shift in Catholic doctrine, from a tradition of supersessionism—the belief that the Church replaced Israel in God's covenant—to one of respect for Judaism's ongoing validity. The revocation served as a formal, if belated, punctuation mark on a centuries-old injustice. It closed a canonical chapter, allowing the Church to address modern Jewish relations on a different footing.