Influential Catholic leaders are emphasizing with new urgency the responsibility of everyday Catholics to combat antisemitism.
“Let Catholics anew, beginning today, join hands in a new abolitionism: A summons to step up solidarity with the Jewish people in a moment when the malignity aimed at them continues to reveal its serpentine face,” Mary Eberstadt, the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center and senior research fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute, said during a conference held March 10 in Washington, D.C.
The conference, “Catholics and Antisemitism–Facing the Past, Shaping the Future,” was hosted by Philos Catholic, part of The Philos Project, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting positive Christian engagement in the Near East, in partnership with the Catholic Information Center (CIC), a self-described “Catholic intellectual hub” that seeks to serve professionals by the D.C. metro area.
The event featured three panels moderated by Simone Rizkallah, director of Philos Catholic, and a keynote address about Pope St. John Paul II and the Jewish people by George Weigel, distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), where Weigel holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
Father Charles Trullols, director of CIC, called St. John Paul II’s words at the Great Synagogue of Rome in 1986 the backdrop of the conference.
“The Jewish religion is not ‘extrinsic’ to us, but in a certain way is ‘intrinsic’ to our own religion,” he quoted the late pope. “With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.”
Throughout the afternoon, the panelists explored the contemporary relevance and presence of antisemitism within Catholic communities, the historical roots and evolution of Catholic antisemitism, and practical ways to combat antisemitism within Catholic circles.
“Evil is real,” Eberstadt said. “And for Catholics to turn a blind eye to that reality in the specific case of antisemitism is morally unacceptable.”
The Catholic responsibility to fight antisemitism
The conference comes after a new coalition of Catholic leaders promised to combat antisemitism and to promote friendship with the American Jewish community amid the devastation of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023. The coalition was announced during a previous conference by The Philos Project and Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio.
Since that time, polling continues to find a rise in antisemitism. Most recently, in January, a survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that nearly half of adults worldwide — 46% or more than two billion people — hold “deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes.” These numbers represent more than double the number of people from ADL’s first global survey a decade ago and the highest level recorded since ADL began tracking.
“The real reason that I came to visit with you all today is not for my own people, it’s not for the Jewish people,” Jonathan Silver, chief programming officer of Tikvah, editor of Mosaic, and the Warren R. Stern Senior Fellow of Jewish Civilization, said. “That is because I am profoundly concerned: Antisemitism harms the antisemite more than it harms the target of antisemitism.”
Anitisemitism, he added, should be understood “as a barometer of civic health.”
Several panelists pointed to a growing problem online.
“Posts defending Jew hatred, Holocaust denial, and worst of all, Holocaust cheerleading that openly calls for the death of Jews, receive tens of thousands of likes on social media,” Trent Horn, staff apologist for Catholic Answers, cautioned. “The problem will only get worse if we, out of ignorance, hubris, or cowardice, refuse to face it head on.”
He added: “We must face it with hearts filled not with malice but with the love of Christ that seeks to rescue people who have been ensnared by the father of lies.”
Since the last conference, speakers have recognized a need to speak to young people.
“What has evolved is an understanding of just how crucial it is to speak to Catholics right now — especially young Catholics — about what their Catholicism means when it comes to our elder brothers in faith, as St. John Paull II put it, the Jews,” Eberstadt said.
A Catholic response to antisemitism
Several panelists shared their recommendations for the Church and everyday Catholics to take action against antisemitism.
Maggie Phillips, author of the series “Religious Literacy in America” for Tablet Magazine, began by calling on Church leadership to encourage priests to educate their congregations. Phillips, who has written about Christians’ obligation to stop antisemitism for Word on Fire, also recommended that Catholics reach out to their local Jewish community. Catholics should also remain vigilant about what content they and their families consume online and consider making acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Kathryn Jean Lopez, senior fellow at the National Review Institute, where she directs the Center for Religion, Culture, and Civil Society, and editor-at-large of National Review, remembered approaching a man wearing a yarmulke on the train after the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that began the Israel-Hamas War. She wanted to let him know, “I’m so sorry.”
“If we as Christians dehumanize our Jewish elder brothers … we’ll dehumanize anybody,” she said. “That’s our spiritual family.”
Lopez spoke about Catholics’ responsibility to take action, even if in little ways.
“Do things that seem small, like saying something to the guy on the Amtrak train who’s obviously Jewish or doing a dedicated holy hour,” she encouraged.
James O’Reilly, associate director of Philos Catholic, and Phillip Dolitsky, strategic advisor at The Philos Project, spoke about friendship. Dolitsky, an Orthodox Jew, called the building of friendships as key to the future of Jewish-Christian relations.
Looking toward the future
Other panelists, such as Russ Hittinger, executive director of The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, and Richard F. Crane, professor of history at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, delved into Church history and teaching, including Nostra Aetate, a transformative document in Catholic-Jewish relations, in 1965.
“I think all of the popes of the new millennium have pointedly stated that there is no going back to the old misunderstandings of Christianity not having in its very identity, its self-identity, a sense of its Jewishness and the covenantal relationship between Jews and Christians,” Crane said.
As for St. John Paul II, Weigel spoke about the late pontiff’s wish that Jews and Christians would be a blessing to one another.
“At the Synagogue of Rome in 1986, St. John Paul II called Jews and Christians to a ‘collaboration in favor of man,’ as he put it,” he said. “A collaboration in defense of human life and human dignity.”
“If we would honor his memory, let us commit our minds, hearts and souls to advancing that collaboration,” he added.
The panelists expressed new hope for the future.
“As a Jewish person, I am looking out on the world and seeing something that is genuinely new under the sun, I think unprecedented in the long history of the Jews,” Silver said at one point. “I know that the metastasising antisemitism especially in online spaces, especially among the lonely and the suffering, is a real thing. And yet I also know that, for perhaps the first time in history, there are millions of Christian friends that do not feel that way and feel the opposite.”
“So many millions in fact that perhaps for the first time in history there are now more Christians who care about the fate of the Jews than there are Jews,” he added. “This is a blessed moment to be alive.”
