In recent weeks, there has been an unfolding public conversation on the political right about Christian Zionism and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. This debate has extended to Catholics—with some claiming, and others rejecting, the compatibility of Catholicism and Zionism. As co-authors of a forthcoming book on Palestine, Israel, and Catholic Social Teaching, we feel the debate has brought to the surface important questions with which Catholics must grapple. At the same time, it has caused significant confusion around Church teachings on the relationship with the Jewish people and the modern state of Israel. How might Catholics think about these issues?
Catholic Concerns about Zionism
In a February 20, 2026 op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “I am a Catholic. And a Zionist.”, R. R. Reno argues that the Catholic Church is agnostic about Zionism, and that Christians have a responsibility, post-Holocaust, to make reparations to Jews by supporting Zionism. Both of his claims are wrong.
First, the Catholic Church does have views on Zionism; it has had longstanding concerns about the political ideology and its impact on Palestinians. In 1922, the Vatican wrote to the League of Nations stating that it did “not oppose that the Jews have equal civil rights in Palestine,” but could not accept their having a “privileged” status. In 1948, Pope Pius XII lamented the catastrophic displacement of Palestinians who became refugees when Israel was established. In Nostra aetate (1965) the Second Vatican Council avoided endorsing the State of Israel or Zionism. In this declaration, the Church issued a positive statement on its relationship with the Jewish people and rejected its earlier teachings of contempt toward them, but in doing so, it made clear that it was “not moved by political reasons.” and it does not mention Zionism or the State of Israel. In 1985, a pontifical commission specified that the Church views the modern State of Israel through the lens of international law, with its requirements of equality, justice, and human rights. The Church invites Catholics to understand Jewish religious attachment to the land, but without ascribing their own theological significance to this relationship.
The teachings of the Catholic Church do not align with modern nationalism, including Zionism. Its official view supports a two-state solution (not currently supported by Israel), and there are many Catholic voices who insist that the priority in any political solution—whether two states or one—should be equal rights and dignity for all.
Catholics cannot repair their relationship with Jews at the expense of Palestinians, who have experienced Zionism as subjugation, dispossession, and discrimination.
Second, Reno is right that the Church has much to atone for in its contributions to historic antisemitism and the Holocaust; while Pope Pius XII rightly noted the harms done to Palestine’s refugees in 1948, Vatican public silence and German Catholic complicity during Nazism represent Church failures. But reparation for these wrongs cannot be accomplished through support for Zionism. Palestinians were not the perpetrators of the European genocide against the Jews and should not have to suffer for the West’s antisemitism. Yet far too many Catholics stayed silent on Israel’s Gaza genocide because of their guilt over the Church’s anti-Jewish history. Catholics cannot repair their relationship with Jews at the expense of Palestinians, who have experienced Zionism as subjugation, dispossession, and discrimination.
What Reno doesn’t factor into his analysis nearly enough is the role that Catholic Social Teaching should play in guiding us on these matters. As we argue in our book and elsewhere, the principles of inherent human dignity, the preferential option for the poor, the common good, solidarity, and subsidiarity—articulated in Catholic magisterium—cannot be ignored and indeed should be foregrounded in a Catholic approach to Palestine/Israel. This requires us as Catholics to address the structural injustices impacting Palestinians, from the 1948 Nakba to Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and genocide ongoing in Gaza and the West Bank today.
The Question of Antisemitism
Reno’s op-ed was spurred by earlier comments made by Carrie Prejean Boller at a recent hearing on antisemitism. A former Miss America, recent convert to Catholicism, and member of the Trump Administration’s Religious Freedom Council, Boller was later ousted for her line of questioning, which went viral. In it, Boller bucked the largely pro-Israel tenor of the hearing, making the point that the Catholic Church does not endorse Zionism and that it should not be considered antisemitic to oppose Zionism. “Do you believe that speaking out about what many Americans view as genocide in Gaza should be treated as antisemitic?” she asked one of the hearing testifiers, in regard to campus Gaza protests. Boller opened up an important conversation about Christian Zionism at a pivotal time. Major Trump administration officials, such as U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, regularly espouse Christian Zionist views; the ideology—rejected by Jerusalem Church leaders—continues to facilitate Israeli and U.S. policies that cause grave harm to Palestinians in the Holy Land and have also helped to fuel the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.
At the same time, other comments and online posts by Boller—less covered in the media—reveal a flippancy with antisemitic views, as well as her own reliance on theological views grounded in an anti-Judaism which the Catholic Church has rejected.
As for the latter, Boller’s views in some ways mirror older Vatican reservations about Zionism that were tainted by anti-Judaism. When Pope Pius X met with Zionist founder Theodore Herzl in 1904, the pontiff declared that “the Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people,” rejecting the Zionist political vision not because of concerns for Palestinians, but because of Jews’ denial of Christ. This papal quote, which has been shared widely on social media following the hearing—including by Boller herself—shows how some Catholics still have much to learn about how their Church has in fact turned away from what Israeli Jesuit Fr. David Neuhaus, S.J. describes as a “traditional teaching that condemned the Jews to a perpetual state of exile as punishment for their refusal to accept Christ.”
While Boller is correct that Catholics do not ascribe to the dispensational theology that characterizes much of Christian Zionism, including in her previous Evangelical context, she at times incorrectly portrays Catholic teaching on God’s covenant with the Jewish people, implying that the (Catholic) Church has simply replaced Jews as God’s people. But the Church asserts that the covenant with the Jewish people was not revoked; rather with the advent of Jesus, the covenant opens up to all people. In Nostra aetate, the church is understood as the “new people of God,” but the Jews are not “accursed or rejected.” This does not mean that Jews have a right to the land over the Palestinians or others. Instead, the land should be understood as belonging to God, and the rights, dignity, and freedom of its inhabitants must be achieved and safeguarded. As Fr. Neuhaus writes, “Respecting Jewish attachment to the land must not contradict the fundamental right of Palestinians to live in the land of their ancestors, enjoy full self-determination and thrive there.”
While rejecting exclusive Jewish claims to the land, Boller’s logic, laid bare in retweets, ends up in its own problematic place—with Christians having exclusive right to the land. This position is also antithetical to Catholic teaching. Though radically different from Reno’s view, it also sidelines the guiding principles of Catholic Social Teaching.
Beyond this, Boller has amplified and aligned herself with antisemitic voices. Most concerningly, Boller has failed to call out her “beautiful and courageous friend” Candace Owens. Owens has indeed shared various antisemitic tropes and conspiracies—these views are not hard to find—including that the Jews caused the American Civil War and controlled the slave trade.[1] When asked during the hearing if Owens has ever said anything antisemitic, she responded unequivocally: “No, I don’t. I listen to her daily, and I haven’t heard one thing out of her mouth that I would say is antisemitic.” Owens also uses antisemitic tropes when criticizing Israel, (using terms like “occult Baal worshippers”) which Boller has then shared. Comments by Owens, as well as white nationalist Nick Fuentes (both Catholics), are regularly re-tweeted by Boller.
It seems that Boller was removed from the religious freedom council not for these problems, but for her very legitimate point that it is not inherently antisemitic to oppose Israel’s actions or Zionism. This underscores the ongoing free speech risks for those criticizing Israel and Zionism, who are often uncritically labeled as antisemitic for their advocacy for Palestinian rights. As Catholics, we have a moral obligation to resist this conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism and to acknowledge the devastating harm caused by policies and ideologies that entrench Israeli dominance over Palestinians. But by dabbling in anti-Jewish theology and tolerating antisemitism, Boller undermines her own valid point—and ultimately runs the risk of hurting the cause of Palestinian freedom.
A Teachable Moment for Catholic Social Teaching and Israel-Palestine
Reno’s op-ed and Boller’s commentary have created a teachable moment for U.S. Catholics, one that should have occurred long ago. As the genocide in Gaza unfolded for two years, partly under the second Catholic president, Joe Biden, we witnessed silence on the part of too many American Catholics, many of whom were “progressive except on Palestine.” Now, things are beginning to shift, with both the political right and left coming to recognize failings in Zionism, Christian or otherwise. In this moment—as the U.S.-Israel war on Iran drags the region into conflict, and as Palestinians are still facing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the deepening of Israel’s military occupation and annexationist policies in the West Bank—it is important that we not repeat past mistakes and failures. There is no Catholic brand of Christian Zionism. Rather, Catholic Social Teaching provides a blueprint for promoting Palestinian freedom while eschewing anti-Judaism and broader antisemitic views that have no place in the movement for peace, justice, and equality in Israel-Palestine.
[1] Boller’s comments also come out of a broader “America First” approach, which can have an important anti-interventionist critique and rejection of U.S. militarism but at the same time involving problematic xenophobic tendencies.
This is a wise and sensible critique of Reno and his ilk. So many illiberal commentators today purport to be Catholics but routinely ignore or simply don’t know Catholic Social Teachings.
If Catholic social teaching does not oppose apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, then what good is it? How could the Catholic Church be the mystical body of Christ if it were in favor of such evils?But of course, all these things are contrary to our religion, no matter what secular political statements might be issued by laymen who have set themselves up as pundits or even by bishops expressing their personal opinions. We should all oppose Zionism on moral and religious grounds. And we should pray for people that have been taken in by that ideology.