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Cassidy is president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. In 1989 the pope chose him to be president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.

The event sponsor is the Swig Judaic studies program at USF in partnership with Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, the Episcopal Diocese of California and the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The Flannery-Hyatt Institute for Interfaith Understanding, established in June 1999, functions primarily as host of an annual conference on Jewish-Christian relations. It furthers the work of its namesakes David Hyatt and the Rev. Edward Flannery, both Catholics.

Hyatt championed interfaith dialogue as head of the National Conference of Christians and Jews before his death in 1992. His widow, Lillian Hyatt of San Francisco, said local Jewish activist John Rothmann proposed the creation of the institute.

Flannery, who died in 1998, was an opponent of anti-Semitism. He won a National Catholic Book Award for his 1965 work, "The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism."

Tickets for the symposium are $10 and must be purchased in advance. For reservations, call (415) 422-6302.