AN OVERDUE EXPLANATION
On February 11, 2026, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced the removal of Carrie Prejean Boller from President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission. Carrie Boller, a Catholic convert and former Miss California USA, sparked an intense debate at the recent commission hearing when she rooted her rejection of Zionism in her Catholic faith, for which she received intense backlash.
In the face of these unjust attacks on her position and other Catholics standing up for their faith, Catholics for Catholics has put together an explanation with greater theological precision on the authentic Catholic view of Zionism and the 1948-State of Israel.
At the outset, it’s important to affirm three points.
First and foremost: as Catholics, we articulate Catholic beliefs using the teaching and language of the Catholic Church. We rejoice that Christ left us St. Peter, the Apostles, and their successors to teach us the truths of faith and morality. The Church has its own language to define its own beliefs, both of which have been carefully formulated and refined under the guidance of the Holy Spirit for now 2,000 years. That means when we articulate what we believe as Catholics, we will use the language of the Church—not those outside of it.
Second: “Zionism” is a non-Catholic term that is both biblically charged, and notoriously ambiguous and abused. The fact of its being “biblically charged” could not be avoided even by the secular founders of the 1948 State of Israel, who in their Declaration of Independence framed its founding as part of “the realization of the age-old dream—the redemption of Israel.” Thus, while some may try to divest the term “Zionism” of theological implications, it’s impossible to do so completely.
Third: evaluating “Zionism,” as such, therefore touches upon matters of biblical interpretation, the authority for which belongs to the Catholic Church. Since Christ gave this authority to interpret Scripture and infallibly teach in matters of faith and morals to the Catholic Church alone, we, as Catholics, must always defer to those teachings—and the language in which they are formulated—when it comes to articulating Catholic beliefs.
WHAT THAT MEANS IS THIS: no one can demand that Catholics use non-Catholic language to explain Catholic belief. This is just as absurd as demanding Jews and other non-Catholics use Catholic language to explain their non-Catholic beliefs. We can use the language of those outside the Church to explain what we reject. But we will always use the language of the Church to explain what we believe.
Now, what does the term “Zionism” mean to non-Catholics? Some claim it simply means the 1948 State of Israel has a “right to exist.” There is a precise sense in which Catholics affirm that, for which the Church has provided us clear and unambiguous language: namely, a right to exist according to what the Church calls the natural law, which is the moral order that applies to all people, and all nations, without appealing to any particular religion. Obviously it is absurd to contend that such a belief is “Antisemitic,” or hateful toward Jews. It’s the opposite.
However, many self-proclaimed “Zionists” among both Jews and Christians often go far beyond the mere “right to exist” according to natural law, and instead claim that the 1948 State of Israel is the inheritor of God’s covenant with Abraham according to divine law that applies only to them, thereby entitling them to sovereignty over the Holy Land by divine right. They thereby define “right to exist” not as a claim merely to exist under the natural law like any other people or nation (which Catholics believe), but as a theological claim under divine law, grounded in the Bible, and unique to the 1948 State of Israel.
THIS, as Catholics, we wholeheartedly reject.
The reason why is simple.
At the root of this issue is whether or not we really believe Our Lord when He said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6); and what St. Peter, our first Pope, preached to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
As St. Paul—himself “an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom. 11:1)—taught us: “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29). Thus Vatican II’s teaching in Nostra Aetate itself that “the Church is the new people of God,” and in Lumen Gentium, that it is the “new Israel.”
We do not say this with pride against our Jewish friends, who we love and long to see come to their Messiah and His Church. We reject all Antisemitism, which is simply hatred of Jews. We desire no harm to come to our Jewish friends, but only their true and highest good, which is found in their Christ and ours. The ranks of the Church have included Jews from the beginning to this very day, and its apostolic foundations were entirely Jewish!
Indeed, the Jews remain Christ’s family according to the flesh, and He longs and weeps for their salvation, as He once wept over Jerusalem. Likewise, the Jews are the only nation to whom He promised a final conversion before His return. We await this day with expectation and hope.
Nonetheless, as eminent Catholic biblical theologian Dr. Scott Hahn observed, “To be a Catholic Christian…does not in any way cause you to embrace Zionism as the fulfillment of prophecy.”
Likewise, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI asserted, “a Jewish religious state that wanted to be considered the political and religious fulfillment of the promises [of God]—is historically unthinkable according to the Christian faith and would be contrary to the Christian understanding of the promises.”
Now that it exists, we acknowledge that the modern 1948 State of Israel has the same right as every other nation to exist as a matter of natural—not divine—law, which includes the duty to conduct its affairs with justice. We do not require a non-Catholic, error-prone word like “Zionism” to articulate a Catholic belief for which the Church has provided language that is clear, and free of error.
Many are often told they’re “Antisemitic” if they impose a double standard on the 1948 State of Israel. But for what other nation are we, both as Catholics and as Americans, required to either embrace an “ism,” or be labeled a “hater” of that nation and its people? The answer is: none, except the 1948 State of Israel. Catholics do not need, and have never used, terms like “Americanism” or “Mexicanism” or “Italianism” to affirm the Catholic belief that each of those nations have a right to exist under natural law. Why, therefore, would we use the non-Catholic, biblically charged, and notoriously ambiguous and abused term of “Zionism” to affirm the exact same Catholic belief about the 1948 State of Israel?
Indeed, as we already said, the Church’s language about “natural law” and its application to the 1948 State of Israel is clear, and free of error. But the non-Catholic language of “Zionism,” as we have so often seen, has been both tragically ambiguous, and prone to spawn numerous theological and moral errors, not the least of which is the appropriation of biblical promises now fulfilled in Christ to the 1948 State of Israel by a specious appeal to Abraham, all for the sake of extending its domination over the Holy Land. The consequences have often been bloody and catastrophic, used to justify both horrific crimes against our Christian Palestinian brethren, and catastrophic foreign policy decisions by American leaders—to say nothing of how it has too often warped the minds of Christians about their own faith, and deadened their hearts to the plight of their brethren in the Middle East.
It is therefore not us who are using a double standard, but those who insist Catholics speak about the 1948 State of Israel in a way they speak about no other nation. And if we don’t comply with their demands, they’ll slander us as “Antisemites.”
Antisemitism—hatred of Jews—is wrong, and rejected by the Catholic Church. But so is equivocating resisting “Zionism” with hatred of Jews, for the reasons we’ve now explained. This is what my fellow Catholic Carrie Prejean Boller so boldly stood for on the panel for Religious Liberty.
Nor does recognizing this truth require us to turn a blind eye to the dangers of radical Islam, whose tenets are not only incompatible with the Christian foundations of the West, but continue to inspire violence against it.
This is a battle between Americans and a foreign ideology that uses religious errors masked with the Bible to divide us. We must not take the bait. What was true in 1776 is true today: that these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all “Biblical” Allegiance to any foreign nation.
As our nation celebrates 250 years since our founding, it is vital that we continue to hold fast to the teachings of our Catholic Faith which will ensure our Country continues to flourish as One Nation Under God and through the intercession of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States.
Download and Share this Article
