Can Catholics be Zionists?

In this episode Trent reviews recent controversy about “Zionism” and whether Catholics can support this movement.

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Trent Horn (00:00):

Last week recent Catholic Convert, Carrie Perine Bolen made headlines by complaining about Zionism at a hearing for the Justice Department’s Religious Liberty Commission. At the time of this recording, she had been allegedly removed from the panel on the grounds of hijacking a hearing for her own personal and political agenda, which raises a question about antisemitism and whether anti-Zionism is a similar evil. And this raises another question. Can Catholics be Zionists? We’re going to answer that on today’s episode, and before anyone can accuse me of being a shameless shill for a foreign government, I would like to remind everyone, the only shameless shilling I do is for myself. So if you like today’s episode, please hit the like button and subscribe so you don’t miss our content. Also, we have less than 100 tickets left for our April 11th evangelism conference here in Dallas. So if you want to join 800 people to learn how to defend your faith, and I recommend getting your tickets as soon as possible, they’re available@conferenceoftrent.com.

(00:56):

Less than 100 or left, so get your tickets today. Alright, so can a Catholic be a Zionist? Well, we can’t answer that question unless we have a specific accurate definition of the term that we’re describing. So what is Zionism roughly speaking? Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in 19th century Europe as Jews sought to establish a homeland where they could be protected from anti-Jewish violence. Even in the 19th century, pogroms or violent riots against Jews resulted in loss of property and loss of life. If you’re my age, your first exposure to pogroms was probably in the 1986 animated film in American Tale, which depicts Russian Jews and Jewish mice celebrating Hanukkah before their village is burned down, forcing them to flee to other nations for safety, this movement to relocate Jews was called Zionism because in the TaNaK, the Hebrew Bible Christians call the Old Testament, Zion is the spiritual and geographic home of the Jewish people.

(01:50):

The name itself refers to a hill just outside Jerusalem, but the name came to represent the entire land of Israel as well. Now that’s just the bare bones definition. Since Zionism is fragmented into many different definitions and goals related to securing a state for the Jewish people. So let’s build from the ground up in order to answer this question first, there’s nothing in Catholic teaching that prohibits supporting the existence of a nation that prioritizes a particular ethnic or non-Catholic religious group as long as that nation respects the rights of people outside of the group that it prioritizes. Now, ideally, all nations would prioritize the one holy Catholic and apostolic church as the true religion while respecting the rights of non-Catholics living in their borders. The second Vatican Council said the truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power, religious freedom, in turn, which men demand is necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society.

(02:54):

Therefore, it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one church of Christ. But in the duration from now until a future time when all people recognize the truth of Catholicism, Catholics can support particular ethnic or religious groups who seek to live among their own populations. One prudential reason for such support might be the good of protecting members of a religious minority from persecution and violence. Since the Bible tells us to rescue those who are being taken away to death, hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter when it comes to Jewish Zionism. Alternative locations like Uganda or Eastern Russia had been proposed to the movement’s leaders over a century ago, but Palestine was ultimately chosen due to its historic connections to the Jewish faith. In response, some people cite the teachings of Pope Pius II as evidence that Catholics cannot support a Jewish state in the land of Palestine.

(03:50):

In 1897, Austrian Jewish journalists, Theodore Herzl founded the Zionist organization and became one of the most famous figures in early Zionism. In 1903, Hersel met with Pop Pius II in a private audience to discuss the matter and a quote related to it is often passed around the internet as coming from a letter of Pop Pius 10 at Theodore Hersel. The quote says, we are unable to favor the Zionist movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ as the head of the church, I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord. Therefore, we cannot recognize the Jewish people. If you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with priests and churches to baptize all of you.

(04:37):

However, this statement is not a teaching of the Catholic church because this statement is not found in any church document. Instead, it comes from Hersel’s recollections of his encounter with the Pope that he wrote down in his own diary. If that counts as binding magisterial teaching, then so does everything Pope Francis allegedly said to Italian journalist, Eugenio Sari, I don’t think critics want to go down that road. Even if it were a part of Catholic social teaching, which it isn’t, it would be subject to development as social conditions change. In 1917, Archbishop Eugenio Pelli the future. Pope Pius II arranged for Knock Salov, a representative of Hersel’s Sist organization to meet with Pope Benedict the 15th. That same year the British government declared his Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. In 1922, the League of Nations established a mandate to secure the establishment of the Jewish national home.

(05:33):

While Zionists purchased land from Arab owners in the region in 1926, Cardinal Pelli urged German Catholics to support those settlements in Palestine through the German pro-Palestine committee. And it’s important to point out this continual non-Jewish support for the establishment of a Jewish state In Palestine. Decades before World War ii, antisemites often claim that the Nazi Holocaust was a myth invented to guilt the world into establishing Israel as a nation. In 1948, however, scholar Dove Waxman author of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, what everyone Needs to Know says that while the Holocaust made the matter more urgent, political factors like the Soviet’s desire to remove Britain from Palestine and replaced it with a state more friendly to their interests, played a larger role in establishing Israel. Along with a long running Zionist movement, he writes, A Jewish state would probably have emerged in Palestine sooner or later with or without the Holocaust.

(06:26):

In 1964, Pope Paul II visited Israel making him the first pope to leave Italy in 100 years and the first Pope to ever travel in an airplane. While in Israel, the Pope participated in a memorial for those who died in the Holocaust, and he met with ecumenical patriarch Athenas, the first of Constantinople to lift Excommunications that were given during the great schism of 10 54. In 1987, Pope St. John Paul II said, after the tragic extermination of the Shoah, the Jewish people began a new period in their history. They have a right to a homeland, as does any civil nation according to international law. For the Jewish people who live in the state of Israel and who preserve in that land such precious testimonies to their history and their faith, we must ask for their desired security and the due tranquility that is the prerogative of every nation and condition of life and of progress for every society.

(07:18):

In 1993, the Vatican officially recognizes Israel’s existence as a country, and in the year 2000, Pope John Paul II visited the country during a five day pilgrimage. The 1993 agreement specifically outlines the holy see’s recognition of Israel as a legitimate nation and Israel’s duty to maintain a status quo in Christian holy sites and a guarantee of freedom of worship at those Christian holy sites. One prudential argument for a Jewish state in Palestine is that the alternative would probably be a Muslim state that is not as amenable to respecting religious liberty. For example, in Israel it is legal to attempt to convert an adult Jew as long as bribery like promising gifts or money is not used. However, in other Muslim majority countries, sharing the faith with Muslims is illegal and in some cases can be punished with death or consider this. In Israel, the site of Christ’s ascension has been controlled by Muslims since the 12th century, and as a result, the holy sacrifice of the mass can only be celebrated at the site once a year on the feasts of the ascension.

(08:18):

And no sacred images are allowed at the site in accord with Muslim principles, and while some ultra orthodox Jews harass Christian pilgrims, one can make the argument that this arrangement is still preferable to being under Muslim control. That is far more likely to use force including lethal force to prevent Christians from engaging in any acts of public worship or visitation of holy sites. So the Catholic church does not teach that Christians are forbidden from recognizing the existence of Israel as a distinctly Jewish state. They’re also free though to protest this political arrangement and make a prudential argument in favor of that view, but Catholics aren’t obligated to that view. However, the Catholic Church does prohibit a more radical kind of Zionism popular among Dispensationalist Protestants that identifies the modern nation of Israel with the Israel described in the Bible as can be seen in this Tucker Carlson interview with Senator Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz (09:11):

Growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things of those who bless the government of Israel, those who bless Israel is what it says. It doesn’t say the government of it says the nation of Israel. So that’s in the Bible. As a Christian, I believe

Trent Horn (09:32):

That of course when the biblical authors mention Israel, like in Genesis 12 three saying, those who bless Israel shall be blessed, they are not referring to the modern nation state of Israel. So I agree with Perin when she said this in her hearing.

Carrie Prejean (09:45):

As a Catholic, I don’t agree that the new modern state of Israel has any biblical prophecy meaning at all. So that’s my stance and I’m Catholic.

Trent Horn (09:56):

In Galatians three, seven through nine, Paul makes it clear that anyone who belongs to the true Israel through Christ, God will bless that person and not just those who belong to the Jewish faith or have Jewish ancestry. For more on this error, see Gavin Orland and Joe Hess Meyer’s episodes that I’ve linked in the description below the second Vatican Council taught in Lumen Genium that quote, Israel, according to the flesh, which wandered as an exile in the desert, was already called the Church of God. So likewise the new Israel, which while living in this present age goes in search of a future in abiding city is called the Church of Christ. So the church is the New Israel, but the Catholic church also condemns the view that God simply abandoned the Jewish people and so they are on par or even morally inferior to other non-Christians.

(10:47):

The second Vatican council taught that although the church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or a cursed by God as if this followed from the holy scriptures throughout Christian history, while pagan temples were often destroyed and their worship was banned, Jewish synagogues were allowed to exist because Jews were seen as still having a special witness to God’s promises. Romans 11 even says that Jews who rejected Jesus are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. Zionism is incompatible with Catholicism if it contradicts the church’s theological claims about Christ and the Jews. In 2018, Pope Emeritus Benedict the 16th published an essay on Judaism in Israel where he said the following, after the establishment of Israel as a country in 1948, a theological doctrine emerged that eventually enabled the political recognition of the state of Israel by the Vatican At its core is the conviction that a strictly theologically understood state, a Jewish faith state that would view itself as the theological and political fulfillment of the promises is within history according to Christian faith and contrary to the Christian understanding of the promises.

(11:59):

At the same time, however, it was made clear that the Jewish people, like every people, had a natural right to their own land as already indicated it made sense to find the place for it in the historical dwelling place of the Jewish people. So a Catholic cannot support a theological Zionism that sees modern Israel as a divine promise, but they can support a more political version that sees Israel as one geographic homeland among many in the world. A Catholic also cannot support any form of Zionism, which says that Jewish people have no need of Christ as their savior. This is why I published an episode on why Jews should convert to Catholicism that you can check out on the link below. However, the church also recognizes God has a special relationship to Jewish people and can providentially guide them so that as Romans 1126 says, all Israel shall be saved.

(12:47):

So when it comes to Zionism, I agree with this post from Lila Rose which says, if Zionist means I think Israel has a right to exist, then I’m a Zionist and so is the Catholic church. If Zionist means I condone everything the Israeli government does, then no, I’m not a Zionist. I also don’t condone everything America does. For those who hate Zionism, what exactly are you hating? I think in many cases the opposition is focused on particular policies of the Israeli government, which Catholics can reasonably disagree about. For example, it is not antisemitic to claim that Israel committed war crimes during its military campaign against Hamas facilities and personnel in Palestine by directly targeting civilians. Claims about military malfeasance may or may not be true, and so they should be investigated, but the claims themselves are not antisemitic. What can be antisemitic is when a person condemns Israel for military actions that result in civilian casualties, but does not condemn other nations who engage in the exact same behavior during armed conflicts. This double standard is often motivated by a personal animus towards Jews, and so it manifests an arbitrary criticism of the Jewish state of Israel. To make an analogy, anti-white racism often manifests itself in condemning Europeans for owning slaves and treating slavery as a uniquely white sin while ignoring that people from Africa, Asia and the Americas also enslaved people throughout human history. In the hearing with ProGene, rabbi Ari Berman made another double standard argument regarding antisemitism.

Rabbi Ari Berman (14:18):

Undoubtedly anti-Zionism is antisemitism and undoubtedly, and one does not have to support the specific policies of the government of Israel, but to not support the right of Israel to exist, which is what anti-Zionists do. While not taking that same stand to the 28 Muslim countries and 13 Christian countries in this world is a double standard, is hypocrisy and is absolutely antisemitism.

Carrie Prejean (14:48):

I’m a Catholic and Catholics do not embrace Zionism, just so you know.

Trent Horn (14:51):

So what should a Catholic make of this in light of how the church has acted towards the nation of Israel since its founding in 1948? First saying Jews in principle should not be allowed to have a dedicated homeland anywhere is an antisemitic double standard since other groups are allowed similar freedoms to promote the common good of their own people. Second, saying, Jews should not have a homeland in Palestine may or may not be antisemitic depending on the motivation. This belief could, for example, be motivated by simply thinking indigenous people in that area were unjustly deprived of their land. This would be similar to how some Native American activists believe much of the land in America actually belonged to certain indigenous peoples and is being unlawfully occupied by the US government. A Catholic could hold this view and be anti-Zionist in this sense without being antisemitic as long as he treats similar kinds of occupations and other nations the same way.

(15:47):

But if the person only holds this view towards Israel, this would be similar to someone who agrees with historians about the reality of every genocide in history except the genocide of Jewish people in World War ii. This kind of person is arguing not in good faith, but with species reasoning for the simple malicious purpose of opposing the Jews. However, JE is wrong when she says this simply is the Catholic view and that Catholics must be or are anti-Zionist. We’ve already seen such an attitude contradicts recent papal prudential judgments as well as the Holy sees own acknowledgement of Israel’s legitimacy as a fellow member of the community of nations. But this would not preclude a Catholic from endorsing something like a two-state solution for Palestinians as Pope ended the 16th did. The bottom line is that Catholics are not obligated to give the nation of Israel more obedience than any other nation on earth, and their first allegiance should be to God and his church.

(16:45):

However, Catholics are permitted to support the existence of a justly administered Jewish homeland in accord with that the Holy Sea has already set forward in several agreements made over the past few decades. There’s a lot more that can be said on this topic. So if you want to solid deep dive on it, I recommend this episode from my colleague Joe Hess Meyer on the question, what should Catholics think about Israel and the Jews linked in the description below? And I really appreciate Joe Hess Meyer’s review of today’s episode. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.