By 
“The Jewish community is attacked at a far higher rate than any other religious group in the United States,” Archbishop Alexander Sample said. “We must clearly speak out against antisemitism.”The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released a video ahead of Easter decrying antisemitism and calling on Catholics to “speak out clearly” against it.
“The Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone,” Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, said in a March 18 video message posted by the USCCB.
“The Jewish community is attacked at a far higher rate than any other religious group in the United States,” he said. “If we Catholics, in truly living out the Gospel, are to defend religious freedom with integrity, we must clearly speak out against antisemitism.”
The USCCB’s message comes less than 20 days before the Easter Triduum, during which Catholics “celebrate the central events of our faith,” Sample said. However, the archbishop said, “sadly, the celebration of Easter has at times been the occasion for outbursts of hatred and even violence against Jews.”
“The guilt for the suffering of Jesus is especially great in us because we who profess to know Christ deny him with our sins,” he said, citing the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which rejects the claim, known as the myth of deicide, that the Jewish people bear the guilt for the death of Jesus, as well as the Second Vatican Council document Nostra Aetate.
“Indeed, Good Friday ought to be an occasion for us to return to the Lord, not to scapegoat others,” he said, describing the myth of deicide as “a profound misunderstanding of what took place on Good Friday” and a significant source of historic and modern antisemitism.
“As Catholics, we are called to walk in the truth, and so to reject the conspiracies and lies that lead to harassment and even violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters,” Sample said.
Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in America, welcomed Sample’s remarks, telling EWTN News: “The statement by Archbishop Sample on behalf of the USCCB could not come at a more important time with bad actors weaponizing Catholicism to spread antisemitic views.”
“We are grateful for the leadership of the Church itself stating unequivocally that the Church rejects those assertions and repudiates antisemitism,” he said.
The Church’s views on antisemitism recently became the center of controversy when media personality Carrie Prejean Boller was removed from the White House-sponsored Religious Liberty Commission last month for remarks she made during a hearing focused on antisemitism.
The former Miss California repeatedly stated during the hearing that her Catholic faith prevented her from embracing Zionism, despite Catholic teaching that does not oppose Israel as a nation or the Jewish people. Boller also repeatedly pressed Jewish panelists on whether her views made her an antisemite.
Catholic teaching does not explicitly oppose Zionism, the movement supporting Jewish self‑determination in a homeland in Israel. Israel is seen as God’s chosen people through whom God revealed himself and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church universally condemns antisemitism. The Church recognizes Israel’s fundamental right to exist.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
I’m sorry, there are a lot of bad people calling themselves Jews that need to be criticized (Soros, Weinstein, Epstein, Adam Schiff, etc.) without them shutting down the conversation by crying “anti-Semitism” the minute it happens.
There’s plenty of anti-Catholicism in this country, and somehow you never hear prominent Jews speak out against it. Why is that?
To me, it’s disgusting that a prominent cleric chooses to use the occasion of the Easter season — when the Jewish leaders crucified Christ — to somehow focus on the correct behavior toward people long hostile to Christianity. This tells you a good bit about why we have the problems we have in the Catholic Church, and in a another sense, America.
If only there were a group of people in the Catholic church who somehow put God and Christians first in their life.
There are good & bad people everywhere, Mr. fred. There are also conspiracy narratives circulating everywhere since Oct. 7th that selectively highlight misdeeds of certain Jews.And spread false narratives about Our Lord’s crucifixion that go against our Catholic teaching.
My goodness, talking about hostility, Catholics have a very long & unhappy history with anti Semitism. History’s just repeating itself today.
God bless Bishop Sample for speaking out about this.
Right. Your comment proves my point: There are good and bad people everywhere, but certain groups have decided that nobody gets to criticize them regardless of what they do.
Regarding Christ’s crucifixion, it would be silly to blame a Jewish person for something ancient Jews did a long time ago, but let’s be clear: the Jewish authorities were responsible for crucifying Christ a long time ago, and I’m betting a lot of them today think that was the right decision!
If you, like one of the other posters here, think that’s somehow not correct, your penance for Lent should be reading the entire New Testament and speaking to whatever Jewish person you can find to ask them whether their ancestors were right or wrong for killing Christ!
I hope CWR deletes your comment for the anti-semitism it contains. It is so wrong-headed that I cannot hope to argue all its points here. But anti-semitic it is. Why make the point of labelling Soros and Epstein et al Jews unless you wish to slander the whole religion. Shall we start to list all the criminal and evil Catholics that have existed? If someone gave a list of criminal Catholics (not that Soros has done anything criminal) and then coyly said they’re not being anti-Catholic you would probably not believe it.
And of course it is an anti-Semitic lie to accuse the Jewish leaders of crucifying Christ. You don’t even know your basic New Testament. The Jewish leaders had no authority to do so and it was a Roman official that condemned Christ and saw him crucified.
Wow. If you think that the Jewish leaders had nothing to do with the crucifixion of Christ, you are the least-educated Christian I have ever met. (Psst. It’s in the New Testament, which I have actually read.)
By now, it’s pretty obvious that when somebody makes a negative comment about some Jew that every other Jew (and housebroken Catholic) will claim anti-Semitism instead of looking at the veracity of the claim being made. Could be anti-Semitism, could be the commenter is pointing out something truly wrong with the individual/group.
Sort of like certain other groups who scream “racism” every time one of their members is accused (rightly or wrongly) of wrongdoing. Their screams mean nothing, anymore.
Thank you msc.
“There’s plenty of anti-Catholicism in this country, and somehow you never hear prominent Jews speak out against it. Why is that?”
Indeed. Ted Cruz thinks Catholics are parasites. Where is the Episcopal outrage for that?
Have you noticed that in any television or broadcast production its perfectly acceptable to stay “Jesus Christ” as an expression of anger or disgust, but you never hear anything similar using the name Mohammed or Bhudda? Indeed, most people will actually say “The Prophet”.
For the same reason that the “International Fellowship of Christians and Jews” describes it’s mission on its 990 as follows:
THE INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN AND JEWS IS THE LEADING NON-PROFIT (SEE SCHEDULE O) BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND JEWS, BLESSING ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD WITH, HUMANITARIAN CARE AND LIFE-SAVING AID.
Note: No aid to Christians. It’s a one way street.
It’s CEO : YAEL ECKSTEIN-FARKAS made almost $800,000 in W-2 compensation the last year.
Like most huge “charities”, (always be wary of the ones with seemingly endless TV ad budgets) including several “Catholic” ones, it is quite good making a few insiders wealthy.
I agree 100%. A relative of mine was giving to that charity and I had to point out to them that there are more than a few very-wealthy Jewish people who could easily take care of the poor people in Israel by themselves.
And, like you said, in the relationships between our groups, the charity only seems to go one way — if it even gets to the needy people at all.
One more thing, there are Christians being slaughted (by Muslims) in other countries right now just because they are Christian. If only there were a Jewish organization dedicated to raising awareness of them and helping them out.
I also think it’s time for the Catholic hierarchy to stop being eunuchs and start raising armies again to protect Christians being “led to the slaughter.”
Anti-zionism is not anti-semitism. Believing fulfillment theology rather than dispensationalism does not mean you hate Jewish people
Anti-zionism is most certainly antisemitism. Denying Isreal’s right to exist and defend itself, hating that nation, is hating it’s people. Hating Israel is hating Jews, regardless of how you spin it.
There are Jews who are anti-Zionist, so make that make sense. Believing the fulfillment of Bible prophecy is not connected to the modern state of Israel does not mean you hate it either. So much zero-sum thinking on this topic I’m sorry
Thank you, Athanasius.
Your Excellency, this was an incomplete and borderline cowardly statement. The real issue is heretical Protestant “Christian Zionism”. (sic), that the USCCB should be addressing with clear teaching and catholic theology. Don’t hide behind the skirt of a middle aged mom trying to protect the one true Faith. Bishop Barron, where are you ?
I guy with an umlaut riled up about the Jews – who would have thunk it!
So enlightened as to engage in argumentum ad hominem, eh “Vince”?
Ms. Boller was very imprudent to make a public spectacle of herself in this situation. Had she actually wanted to help bring souls to the faith, staying on the commission and having private conversations with other members might have facilitated that goal. But that was not her goal. Obviously. That said, I believe her goal was achieved. Publicity and self promotion.
Do you mean to say she should have stayed and tried to sway other members to her un-Catholic view of Zionism?
The theology of Christian Zionism is certainly incompatible with Catholicism (these two articles are quite helpful on that issue https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-precariousness-of-christian-zionism https://fleming.foundation/2025/07/cruz-conscience-and-israel-by-anthony-mccarthy/)
The State of Israel does of course exist as a political entity with which agreements can be and have been made by the Holy See, another political entity. However, criticising the State of Israel – whether its behaviour, its current structure or plans for expansion or the wisdom of its original formation – is in no way unchristian or antisemitic. Indeed, there are many anti-Zionist Jews both secular and religious who do exactly that.
Criticizing Israel is, of course, not necessarily anti-semitic. It becomes anti-semitic when Israel, a Jewish state, is held to different standards than any other country and when its Jewish identity is specifically held to be in part responsible for whatever wrongs the state does. It also becomes anti-semitic when it ends up asserting that there is something inherently wrong in there being a Jewish state (as opposed to any other religious or ethnic group).
“It becomes anti-semitic when Israel, a Jewish state, is held to different standards than any other country”
Such as when AIPAC is not required to register under FARA?
There’s no real thing as “Christian Zionism”. It’s a trope that’s been circulating in social media since Oct. 7th. There are Christians who believe in the right of Israel to exist & there are secularists who believe the same thing. Zionism is simply about the right of Israel to exist.
I find it very odd how the Woke Left & Far Right have joined hands in this issue. Crisis magazine for one example.
This issue is being used as a device to divide the Body of Christ & we know where the original source of that division comes from.Not from God.
There certainly is such a thing as Christian Zionism, (a simple search of the internet will show such a thing as a religious and political ideology, not a trope) and it encompasses the view that the modern nation state of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.
Like “the rapture”, it originated in Protestant novelties of the last two centuries.
Zionism is a real thing. Protestant sects believing in the Rapture are real but “Christian Zionism ” as its being used politically since October 7th is a recent trope.
Just because you only became aware of it, doesn’t make novel or a trope and it was “political” since the 19th century.
In the spring of 1992, Christianity Today did a cover story on Christian Zionism.
The article “For the Love of Zion” (March 9, 1992; pp. 46-50)
A Short History of Christian Zionism
From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century
by Donald M. Lewis
Published: August 31, 2021
From the London School of Economics Undergraduate Political Review:
“The Politics of Apocalypse: The Rise of American Evangelical Zionism”
“The Christian Zionist movement in America can trace its roots back to the late 1800s, with some of the earliest historical evidence coming from Protestant evangelist and author William E. Blackstone’s call to action for the Jews to return to the Holy Land in his best-selling book Jesus Is Coming. Blackstone would later start a petition drive entitled the Blackstone Memorial – which was eventually presented to President Benjamin Harrison in 1891 – where he cites Jewish deportations in Russia to the Pale of Settlement and their expulsion from Sephardim in order to highlight the necessity of a Jewish homeland in the Levant. The movement would continue growing in prominence throughout the 20th Century, passed on by American Institute of Holy Land Studies founder and evangelical George Douglas Young to John Hagee, founder and chairman of the lobbying organisation Christians United For Israel (CUFI), now also extremely powerful. Notably, Christians United for Israel, with a membership count of over 10 million, outnumbers the aforementioned AIPAC and the United States’ Jewish adult population of approximately 5.8 million. Former presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have directly cited their Christian faith as a direct motivator for their support for the Israeli state.”
Some of us are comfortable doing the research.
Mr Pitchfork, there are Christians who are zionists just as there are secular zionists. But “Christian Zionism ” really isn’t the thing thats being circulated in social media and antisemitic websites today.
We might add, as further proof of the reality of Christian Zionism, Christian Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s assertion that Israel has *a right* to much of the middle east (“it would be fine if they took it all”–that is, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates, as the bible relates. Context: his interview with Tucker Carlson).
So we have a figure in the Trump admin. affirming a right of Israel to much of the middle east, based on (an interpretation) of the Bible.
Sure sounds like Christian Zionism to me.
Given the extent of anti-semitism in the world, and the relatively small number of Jews, I have no trouble with there not being any Jewish organization I know of explicitly dedicated to fighting persecution of Christians.
Please, arm yourself and go off on a crusade.
Christians need to help themselves and quit the division and bickering amongst each other.
Christians face persecution in parts of the world, it’s true. But we also face efforts to undermine morale and to divide and weaken the Body of Christ. That’s something only we can fix.
“I have no trouble with there not being any Jewish organization I know of explicitly dedicated to fighting persecution of Christians.”
Red Herring. The issue is whether an organization that is supposedly dedicated to “fellowship” between Christians and Jews should predominately solicit from Christians to the exclusion of Christians.
The irony is the appeal is to Evangelicals who despite routinely declare their devotion to Solafideism and who readily accuse Catholics of being a “religion of works”, are buying the idea that their donations buy divine favor.
In the mean time, nobody-most especially the IDF auxiliaries that patrol this board give a murine posterior about what goes on in Nigeria.
If we’re going to start telling people were to “go off”, any short piers near you?
Israel has indeed been heavy handed in its own defense. This is because they have to. They have millions of people on their doorstep who want to destroy them. They are not blessed by having two oceans and benign neighbors to defend them like the US.
And Israel is about the size of Delaware.
It is not true that “Christian Zionism” is a recent trope. It has been in the making since the 19th Century and is at the root of the Balfour Declaration so-called.
Zionists suppose that the promise of lands could never be lost by the breaking of covenant despite the warning from God, so long as they fight for it “faithfully”. They regard Jews who do not share the view as their own kind of internal weakness and enemy. And anyone Jew or non-Jew who says anything that might jeopardize the “orthodoxy” is then said to be “anti-Semitic” and “defamatory”.
The wording anti-semitic is sort of trapping language that captures the idea that the whole of the lands in question are and will be “only genuinely semitic” if occupied and possessed by Jews and covenant Jews and controlled by Zionists. Hence “semitic” with capital S.
So-called “Christian Zionists” turn Christianity to these understandings and efforts but it is not Christianity. They do not consider, that, among other things, beneficiaries and allies to Jews/Israel all eventually fade out of history.
These are hard things to acknowledge and accept because one has sympathies for Jews. Jews are in broken covenant state with concomitant psyche and they can not regenerate covenant nor can they reintegrate land promises via “consents”.
One can seek to have understanding and sympathy for Jews and friendship with Jews without acceding to any of those errors and without being anything anti-Jew.
Christ has been raised in Glory and so it also makes no sense to commiserate with them or anybody else over their “losses”.
However, the Catholic Church does prohibit a more radical kind of Zionism, popular among some dispensationalist Protestants, that identifies the modern nation of Israel with the Israel described in the Bible. In Galatians 3:7-9, Paul makes it clear that all who believe belong to the true Israel that God will bless, and not just those who belong to the Jewish faith or have Jewish ancestry.
Trent Horn Catholic Answers
“Catholics Can Be Zionists But they can’t say modern Israel is the same as the Israel of the Bible”
02/27/2026
Modern Israel is different in that its smaller than biblical Israel but the descendants of the same children of Abraham live within its current borders. God keeps His promises.
Insofar far as evil characters who are Jews, George Soros, Jeffrey Epstein, Adam Schiff are and were not practicing Jews. If we take ‘Catholics’, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Robespierre were certainly not practicing Catholics. Which non practicing group receives the award for the most evil?
No religion has a monopoly on evil people. It appears evident the most evil characters were non practicing. Islam however is a separate category because their deadly, immoral practices, enslavement and rape, murder of ‘infidels’ are integral to their religious beliefs. Although there are believing exceptions, Anwar Sadat, Dr Daisy Khan, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina.
Insofar far as evil characters who are Jews, George Soros, Jeffrey Epstein, Adam Schiff are and were not practicing Jews. If we take ‘Catholics’, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Robespierre were certainly not practicing Catholics. Which non practicing group receives the award for the most evil?
No religion has a monopoly on evil people. It appears evident the most evil characters were non practicing. Islam however is a separate category because their deadly, immoral practices, enslavement and rape, murder of ‘infidels’ are integral to their religious beliefs. Although there are believing exceptions, Anwar Sadat, Dr Daisy Khan, Ibn Rushd, Persians Ibn Sina, Omar Khayyam.
Adding to my comment, the question of prejudice, whether one can roundly criticize Israel without concern is unethical as well as unrealistic. That due to the Holocaust, the history of anti Jewish pogroms in Tsarist Russia, similar infractions by European Christian nations.
From an ethical perspective criticism is warranted where due, however, with particular consideration of the injustices of the past, the efforts of recent pontiffs, particularly John Paul II, and his exceptional effort to remove the pall of persecution of Jews.
If there is to be criticism it must be justified, warranting intelligence and compassionate assessment of the past. The right for Jews to have a place on this earth that they can claim their own, as both refuge and right to existence. That in context of the refusal of nations to accept Jews when Nazi Germany sent the liner St Louis around the world to encourage acceptance as a solution to their policy to refuse Jews residency in Germany. As we know, not one nation was willing to accept Jews with the result, The Final Solution.
We can reasonably assume that Netanyahu has only one policy premise, the survival of Israel prior to any other consideration.
Thank you, Father Peter, for your reasonable thoughts in response to the comments that were bordering on uncharitable. Mankind was responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. It was our sin that nailed him to the cross- mine, yours, all of us, and even Jews. Not one is innocent, except the one who was crucified. The archbishop was simply trying to calm the voices of anger and hatred which seem to crop up in some way every day with the rising of the sun. I think he was asking me to look at myself and see if my attitude is Christ like. Maybe we should all go to the sacrament of confession more often, at least those of us who call ourselves Catholics. An examen of conscience daily calms the soul and thoughts.
Fr Peter Morello, thanks for your wise words and for putting the historical record straight. Reading most of the rubbish above makes one feel so sad to realise that the oldest racial hatred, antisemitism, is still alive and well and regrettably it is flourishing in many Catholic circles too.
Nope. The minute ANY group of people considers themselves off-limits to criticism, the real corruption begins because they eventually realize they have a blank check for bad behavior and then hide behind their protected status. The high-sounding excuses you give for refusing to tell the truth are just baloney and unworthy of Christian of intellect.
I was not aware that anybody tried to shop their Jewish population to neighboring countries, but it bears asking the question why they tried and why nobody accepted. And, because I’ve already heard anti-Jew rationale and propaganda, I can say that many people calling themselves Jews have done things which, like the Muslims, have given the rest of them a bad name.
So, if you really cared about the people calling themselves Jews, instead of just virtue-signaling how “tolerant” you are, you should also consider that some Jews behaving badly should change their behavior. It would make the rest of them less odious to the people who currently hate their group and make the world a better place at the same time.
Calling them out is the first step.