During conversations in 1961 and 1962 between personnel of the American Jewish Committee and Cardinal Augustin Bea, the president of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity who had been instructed by Pope John XXIII to prepare a draft on the relationship of the church to Judaism for the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Bea stated that he would welcome a set of recommendations placed in a broad context, which he could share with the members of his Secretariat. These recommendations were prepared at the AJC's request by the famous American Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and submitted to Cardinal Bea.