Catholics and Antisemitism—Is It Still a Problem?

Amidst the rising tide of antisemitic sentiment in society and the Church, on March 10, the Philos Project and the Catholic Information Center collaborated to host a conference themed “Catholics and Antisemitism—Facing the Past, Shaping the Future.” This conference sought to identify the causes and nature of antisemitism in our time and give Catholics ways to address anti-Jewish bigotry in their communities.

The conference opened with a panel titled “Catholics and Antisemitism—Is It Still a Problem?” It featured Mary Eberstadt, a senior fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute, Trent Horn of Catholic Answers, and Jonathan Silver of the Tikvah Fund.

Eberstadt offered her initial thoughts and framed the later discussion by placing the relationship between Catholics and Jews in the broader Catholic intellectual tradition. Eberstadt focused her comments on the just war tradition as a differentiating feature from Evangelical supporters of Israel. For Catholics, Eberstadt argued, the just war tradition “smashes moral equivalence like an idol” and renders support for the Jewish state the “right thing to do intrinsically as Catholics” on this basis.

Eberstadt also noted the Jewish love for life as a unique ground for solidarity between Catholics and Jews. As Eberstadt recounted, “Hamas and other enemies of the Jewish people say scornfully, ‘the Jews love life.'” Catholics, too, share in this love for life and radical resistance to the culture of death that Jews do. Thus, Catholics and Jews have a common enemy in anti-life secularism, radical Islamism, and the throwaway culture of modernity.

Eberstadt closed her remarks with a call for what she terms a “new abolitionism,” a union not of elite intellectuals but a broad-based movement of the faithful against the forces of hate directed against the Jews, just as the cause of abolition was in the nineteenth century.

In his opening remarks, Jonathan Silver focused on the toxic influence antisemitism has on free societies. As Silver articulated, the heart of antisemitism is “a politics of blame, grievance, that rejects accountability, rejects responsibility.” The reason hatred has been historically directed against the Jews is merely because the Jews have traditionally been disorganized and defenseless.

Antisemitism, as Silver argued, is a particular application of a broader sickness in the polity, one that is “antithetical to the fundaments of republican government.” The antisemite is thus the greatest threat to his own society, “A culture that embraces blame… cannot but slouch into decline.” Silver compared this to Frederick Douglass’ account of the slaveowner, who the institution of slavery spiritually corrupts without being enslaved himself.

Trent Horn spoke next on the Catholic response to rising antisemitism on campuses and online among Christians. He began by reading from John Earnest’s manifesto, a Christian who committed a shooting at a California synagogue because “every Jew is responsible for the meticulously planned genocide of the European race.” Horn pointed out that despite its shocking content, this manifesto is virtually identical to a vast swathe of online content consumed by many Christians. This Christian antisemitism, in Horn’s reading, relies on quote mining and complete ignorance of the development of doctrine, leading to a reliance on out-of-context references to the Fathers and the Councils.

Horn then discussed the fruits of John Paul II’s work on antisemitism and addressed Catholic claims of supersessionism, that the Church has replaced Israel as God’s chosen. Horn noted that one of the key insights from JPII was the Church’s apology to the Jewish people for past wrongs and moving forward in dialogue on the basis of shared heritage. On supersessionism, Horn noted that the idea is difficult to find in the magisterium, is absent in Romans 11, and relies on non-magisterial data.

During the audience Q&A, Jonathan Silver was asked to elucidate the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Silver’s response focused on a logic of fairness. A criticism is antisemitic based on the “spirit in which it is offered,” with Israel held to a double standard, a perspective shared by Horn.

The panel closed with comments from Eberstadt and Horn on antisemitism as a barometer for civic health. Eberstadt focused her remarks on the sin of envy, accusing antisemites of being jealous of Jewish success and lust for life. Horn identified antisemitism as a misplaced rebellion against the established order. In a society that is against life and suppresses the order God created, many seek a scapegoat: the Jews. The cure for this civic illness, Horn argued, is for young men to return to real-life civic engagement and turn away from online echo chambers.

The next panel sought to address the history of Catholic-Jewish relations and will be recounted in a subsequent post.

The entire conference may be viewed below via the Catholic Information Center YouTube channel.