The Catholic Church and Anti-Zionism

Editorial Note: This document compiles primary-source quotations documenting the Catholic Church’s sustained theological and political opposition to political Zionism — the movement for a secular Jewish state in Palestine — from the late 19th century through the end of the 20th century. The Church’s opposition rested on four distinct grounds: (1) supersessionist theology — Christianity is the “true Israel,” the Jewish exile is divinely ordained, and a Jewish national restoration contradicts Scripture and providence; (2) the Holy Places — Palestine was sanctified by the life of Christ and its sacred sites belong by right to the Christian world; (3) the rights of Arab Christians — a Jewish political majority in the Holy Land would damage the position of Catholic communities there; and (4) the secular character of Zionism — as a modernist, nationalist, and frequently anti-religious movement, Zionism could not be identified with any prophetic fulfillment. This document does not address the broader adversus Judaeos tradition except where it bears directly on anti-Zionism. All quotations are drawn from verifiable primary sources or peer-reviewed secondary scholarship, cited in full.

Table of Contents

  1. Theological Foundations of Catholic Anti-Zionism
  2. Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903)
  3. La Civiltà Cattolica — The 1897 Ballerini Manifesto Against Zionism
  4. Pope St. Pius X — The Herzl Audience (1904)
  5. Cardinal Merry del Val — Secretary of State to Pius X
  6. La Civiltà Cattolica — Anti-Zionist Articles, 1900–1919
  7. Pope Benedict XV (1914–1922)
  8. Cardinal Pietro Gasparri — Secretary of State (1914–1930)
  9. Cardinal Francis Bourne, Cardinal Giustini, and Monsignor Barlassina
  10. Hilaire Belloc on Zionism (1922)
  11. G. K. Chesterton on Palestine (1920)
  12. Pope Pius XI (1922–1939)
  13. La Civiltà Cattolica — Anti-Zionist Articles, 1920–1937
  14. St. Maximilian Kolbe — The Zionist Programme and the Protocols (1926)
  15. E. Sylvester Berry — Zionism and the Antichrist (1921)
  16. Rev. Denis Fahey — Theological Anti-Zionism (1935–1953)
  17. Pope Pius XII (1939–1958)
  18. Vatican Diplomatic Opposition to a Jewish State (1917–1948)
  19. L’Osservatore Romano on Zionism (1897–1948)
  20. Post-1948: Non-Recognition, the Six-Day War, and the Road to the 1993 Fundamental Agreement
  21. Nostra Aetate (1965) — What It Does and Does Not Say About Zionism
  22. Post-Conciliar Catholic Voices: Theological Anti-Zionism After 1965
  23. Archbishop Cyril Bustros — Supersessionism Reasserted at the 2010 Synod
  24. The Six Recurring Theological Arguments of Catholic Anti-Zionism
  25. Bibliography and Further Reading

I. Theological Foundations of Catholic Anti-Zionism

The Catholic Church’s opposition to Zionism rested on a coherent theological architecture. Its central pillar was supersessionism — the doctrine that the Church is the “new Israel,” that the Mosaic covenant has been fulfilled and surpassed in Christ, and that the Jewish people’s exile from Palestine was a providential divine punishment for the rejection of the Messiah, to last until the eschatological conversion of Israel at the end of time. From this framework, a Jewish political restoration in Palestine appeared not merely imprudent but theologically presumptuous — an attempt to reverse what God had decreed.

An unnamed Vatican official, expressing the consensus of the Holy See throughout the period 1897–1948, stated:

“Zionism must therefore be regarded as an arrogant presumption, in opposition to the will of God, who has punished His people, condemning them to exile and wandering.”

Source: Unnamed Vatican official, c. 1917–1922. Cited in Tablet Magazine, “Israel as the Jesus Among Nations” (October 15, 2024).

La Civiltà Cattolica — the Jesuit journal reviewed by the Vatican Secretariat of State before each issue’s publication, described by the Encyclopaedia Judaica as “the faithful interpreter of papal thought” — articulated the foundational anti-Zionist theology in 1897, four months before the First Zionist Congress:

“According to the sacred pages, the Jewish people must always subsist dispersed and wandering among other peoples, so that, not only with the deposit of the Scriptures, which they venerate and keep in reserve, but also with their very state, they bear witness to the faith of Christ… ‘The Jews were dispersed,’ Augustine notes, ‘so that they might be witnesses of their own iniquity and of our truth.'”

And on the specific anti-Zionist implication:

“As for rebuilding a Jerusalem, which will become the centre of a resurrected Israelite Kingdom, it must be noted that this is contrary to the prediction of Christ himself, who affirmed that Jerusalem will be trodden by the Gentiles… donec impleantur tempora nationum [until the times of the nations are fulfilled], until the conversion of the nations is accomplished and the end of the world has arrived.”

Source: Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, pp. 269–270. English translation: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-israel-in-the-modern

L’Osservatore Romano crystallized this framework at the moment of Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948:

“Modern Zionism is not the true heir of Biblical Israel… Therefore, the Holy Land and its sacred sites belong to Christianity, which is the true Israel.”

Source: Julian Schvindlerman, “The Vatican’s Path toward Official Recognition of Israel,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (March 7, 2019); Uri Bialer, Cross on the Star of David (Jerusalem, 2006), p. 11.

II. Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903)

Supersessionism as the Framework for Anti-Zionism

Leo XIII’s supersessionism is the theological foundation on which all Catholic anti-Zionism rests. In Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus (November 1, 1900):

“The varying fortunes, the achievements, customs, laws, ceremonies and sacrifices of the Chosen People had distinctly and lucidly foreshadowed the truth, that the salvation of mankind was to be accomplished in Him who should be the Priest, Victim, Liberator, Prince of Peace, Teacher of all Nations, Founder of an Eternal Kingdom. By all these titles, images and prophecies, differing in kind though like in meaning, He alone was designated…”

Source: Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, §3, November 1, 1900. https://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo13/l13tametsi.htm

The Act of Consecration (1899): “Once Thy Chosen People”

Leo XIII’s Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, appended to Annum Sacrum (May 25, 1899) and mandated for annual universal recitation by Pius X, contains the clearest magisterial statement of the supersessionism underlying Catholic anti-Zionism:

“Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once Thy chosen people. Of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Saviour; may it now descend upon them also in a cleansing flood of redemption and of life.”

Source: Pope Leo XIII, Act of Consecration, appended to Annum Sacrum, May 25, 1899. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/act-of-consecration-of-the-human-race-to-the-sacred-heart-of-jesus-2187

The phrase “once Thy chosen people” (past tense) is a magisterial declaration that Israel’s divine election is a former condition, now transferred to the Church. A Jewish national restoration in the Holy Land was, from this perspective, theologically unintelligible — the people whose mission had been completed were seeking to re-establish themselves on land whose sacred character now belonged to the Church.

III. La Civiltà Cattolica — The 1897 Ballerini Manifesto Against Zionism

Published four months before the First Zionist Congress in Basel (August 1897), Fr. Raffaele Ballerini S.J.’s “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno” became the permanent theological reference for the journal’s anti-Zionism. It was reprinted and cited as the living authority of Vatican anti-Zionist teaching throughout the 1900–1922 period.

Source for all passages in this section: Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10. HathiTrust scan: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044105220339&seq=271. Full English translation: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-israel-in-the-modern

Deicide, Prophecy, and the Blood Curse as Foundation

“Behold, 1827 years have passed since the prediction of Jesus of Nazareth came true to the letter, that Jerusalem would be destroyed, until not one stone was left standing upon another, that the Jews would be led captive among all the nations, and would remain scattered there until the end of time. Of this prediction, to this day, not a syllable has failed. The curse of the sanguis eius [his blood] super nos et super filios nostros, already shouted by the people in the presence of Pontius Pilate, continues to be verified every day, with the same constancy with which the sun rises and sets every day.”

(p. 258)

Jewish Emancipation as “Bearer of Servitude for the Christians”

“The dreamers and supporters of human brotherhood, in secularized civilization, believed for some time that they had cut the knot of quarrels, due to disparity of lineage and religion; and they sang a hymn to the pacifying glory of the new freedom. But very soon… the heavenly emancipation of the Jews showed itself in its effects to be the bearer of servitude for the Christians; so that even this article of the Magna Carta, which was supposed to renew the world, is beginning to be seen to have made it much worse.”

(p. 261)

“A Nation in Every Nation” — The Jew as Immutably Foreign

“The Jew always continues to be immutably Jewish in every place. His nationality is not in the soil where he was born, it is not in the language he speaks; it is in the seed, in the lineage and in that mixture of Bible, Talmud and Kabbalah, which he calls his history and his religion… together with his people, wherever he is, he constitutes a nation in every nation, which organically exists nowhere, but sparsely exists everywhere.”

(p. 265)

Vienna — The Suppression of the Pater Noster to Protect Jewish Sensibilities

“Out of consideration for the offspring of this race, the recitation of Christian prayers, including the Pater Noster, had to be abolished in the schools of the Catholic city, and images of the Crucified Christ had to be removed from the walls, as they would have offended the delicate sight of the children of his crucifiers.”

(pp. 265–266)

Anti-Zionism I — The Holy Sepulchre Cannot Be Surrendered to the Synagogue

Ballerini quoted and endorsed French economist Leroy-Beaulieu:

“Palestine would not have enough to supply food for the entire family of Israel. All Syria would not be able to accommodate more than a small portion of the seven or eight million Jews who live scattered around the globe. Could the Christians and Muslims be evicted from there to make room for them? Could we hand over the Holy Sepulchre to the Synagogue for safekeeping? What Christian would tolerate it?“

(p. 269)

Anti-Zionism II — The Dispersal of Israel as Providential and Perpetual; Rebuilding Jerusalem Contradicts Christ’s Prophecy

“According to the sacred pages, the Jewish people must always subsist dispersed and wandering among other peoples… ‘The Jews were dispersed,’ Augustine notes, ‘so that they might be witnesses of their own iniquity and of our truth.’ Now nineteen centuries have already passed, and the prophetic word is fulfilled today, more manifestly than in times past. The Jewish dust encumbers the civilized and Christian world. As for rebuilding a Jerusalem, which will become the centre of a resurrected Israelite Kingdom, it must be noted that this is contrary to the prediction of Christ himself, who affirmed that Jerusalem will be trodden by the Gentiles… donec impleantur tempora nationum [until the times of the nations are fulfilled], until the conversion of the nations is accomplished and the end of the world has arrived.”

(pp. 269–270)

Jews and Freemasonry — “A Sworn Persecutor of Christianity”

“It cannot be denied that wherever the Jew is civilly equal to the Christian, especially in Catholic countries, he constitutes himself, in league with the Masonic sects, a sworn persecutor of Christianity, and at the same time a very cunning threat to the economic well-being of citizens.”

(p. 267)

IV. Pope St. Pius X — The Herzl Audience (1904)

The most consequential direct encounter between the papacy and political Zionism occurred on January 26, 1904, when Theodor Herzl was received in private audience by Pope Pius X. Herzl recorded the entire exchange in his diary. It remains the most extensive primary-source record of a pope speaking directly on the Zionist question.

Source: Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, ed. Raphael Patai, trans. Harry Zohn, vol. 5 (New York: Herzl Press, 1960), pp. 1601–1605. Full transcription: https://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/herzl1904

The Opening Refusal (Italian original and English translation)

“Noi non possiamo favorire questo movimento. Non potremo impedire gli Ebrei di andare a Gerusalemme — ma favorire non possiamo mai. La terra di Gerusalemme se non era sempre santa, è santificata per la vita di Jesu Christo. Io come capo della chiesa non posso dirle altra cosa. Gli Ebrei non hanno riconosciuto nostro Signore, perciò non possiamo riconoscere il popolo ebreo.”

English translation:

“We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem — but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.”

On Jerusalem Specifically

“Jerusalem must not get into the hands of the Jews.”

“I know, it is not pleasant to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with that. But to support the Jews in the acquisition of the Holy Places, that we cannot do.”

On the Theological Status of Judaism

“The Jewish religion was the foundation of our own; but it was superseded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot concede it any further validity. The Jews, who ought to have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ, have not done so to this day.”

On the Two Theological Options — Neither Permitting Catholic Support

“There are two possibilities. Either the Jews will cling to their faith and continue to await the Messiah who, for us, has already appeared. In that case they will be denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot help them. Or else they will go there without any religion, and then we can be even less favorable to them.”

Baptism as the Only Path to Papal Support

“And so, if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you.”

The Final Word

“Non possumus!” — “We can’t!”

(Pius X’s repeated conclusion to the audience, as recorded by Herzl.)

V. Cardinal Merry del Val — Secretary of State to Pius X

Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val served as Pius X’s Secretary of State for the entirety of his pontificate (1903–1914). He met Herzl four days before the papal audience.

Herzl’s Diary Record of the Meeting (January 22, 1904)

“I do not quite see how we can take any initiative in this matter. As long as the Jews deny the divinity of Christ, we certainly cannot make a declaration in their favor. Not that we have any ill will toward them. On the contrary, the Church has always protected them. To us they are the indispensable witnesses to the phenomenon of God’s term on earth. But they deny the divine nature of Christ. How then can we, without abandoning our own highest principles, agree to their being given possession of the Holy Land again?”

Source: Herzl, Complete Diaries, vol. 5, pp. 1601–1605.

Public Interview with the Zionist Press (May 7, 1904)

“It is impossible for the Catholic Church to endorse Zionism entirely. It is clear that to deliver Palestine, the country where the Savior was born, into the hands of the Jews can not be a very satisfactory solution of the Jewish question to the Vatican… The Catholic Church does not want to protest against the establishment of Jewish colonies in Palestine, but would strongly object to the holy country as a sovereign, independent Jewish State.”

Source: The Catholic Tribune (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), May 12, 1904, p. 5, col. 5.

The 1928 Memorial to Pius XI — Against the Amici Israel

When the Amici Israel sought to soften the Good Friday prayer, Merry del Val’s memorial to Pius XI defending the traditional liturgical posture articulated the theological stakes:

“This report put forward by the so-called Amici Israel strikes me as completely unacceptable, indeed even rash. We are dealing with ancient prayers and rites of the liturgy of the Church, a liturgy inspired and consecrated for centuries that includes condemnation of the rebellion and betrayal perpetrated by the chosen people who were at once unfaithful and deicide…. I would hope that these Amici Israel would not fall into a trap laid by the Jews themselves, who insinuate themselves throughout modern society and seek with whatever means to minimize the memory of their history and take advantage of the good will of Christians.”

Source: Cardinal Merry del Val, Memorial to Pius XI, accepted March 7, 1928. Cited in the scholarly literature on the suppression of the Amici Israel; decree Cum Supremae text: https://novusordowatch.org/pius11-abolition-friends-of-israel/

VI. La Civiltà Cattolica — Anti-Zionist Articles, 1900–1919

The 1897 Formula Reprinted as Active Theological Authority

Following the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the journal reprinted Ballerini’s 1897 formula as the living theological authority for its anti-Zionist coverage:

“According to the sacred pages, the Jewish people must always subsist dispersed and wandering among other peoples… As for rebuilding a Jerusalem that will become the centre of a revived Israelite Kingdom, it must be noted that this is contrary to the prediction of Christ himself.”

Source: Ballerini (1897), cited as active theological authority in La Civiltà Cattolica anti-Zionist writing of 1917–1922. Italian text cited in Treccani, fn. 52; sourcing S. I. Minerbi, Il Vaticano, la Terra Santa, il Sionismo (Milan, 1988), p. 145.

Could We Hand Over the Holy Sepulchre? (Reprinted Through 1919)

“Could we hand over the Holy Sepulchre to the Synagogue for safekeeping? What Christian would tolerate it?”

Source: Ballerini, “La Dispersione d’Israello,” p. 269; reprinted as active authority in La Civiltà Cattolica anti-Zionist coverage through 1919.

VII. Pope Benedict XV (1914–1922)

Benedict XV’s pontificate coincided precisely with the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the post-war settlements shaping the British Mandate. His opposition to Zionism was consistent, theologically grounded, and diplomatically active.

Secret Consistory Allocution — Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XI (1919)

The single most important primary-source document on Benedict XV’s anti-Zionism. Delivered as a formal allocution to the College of Cardinals while the Paris Peace Conference deliberated the future of Palestine.

Latin original (key passage):

“…summopere nimirum anxii sumus de iis quae in hac re Parisiense de pace Consilium proxime constituet: nam acerbus profecto Nobis et Christifidelibus, quotquot sunt, inureretur dolor, si infideles in Palaestina meliori potiorique in conditione ponerentur, multoque magis si illa christianae Religionis augustissima monumenta eis traderentur qui christiani non sunt.”

English translation:

“…We are exceedingly anxious about what the Paris Peace Council will shortly decide in this matter: for a burning pain would indeed be seared upon Us and upon all the faithful, however many they may be, if the infidels were to be placed in Palestine in a better and more privileged condition [than Christians], and much more so if those most august monuments of the Christian Religion were to be handed over to those who are not Christians.“

Source: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XI (1919), pp. 100–101. https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-11-1919-ocr.pdf

Note: In the context of 1919, with the Balfour Declaration promising a Jewish national home, “infideles” refers unmistakably to Jews. The explicit invocation of the Crusades — “how much labor and blood, over the course of centuries, the Western Christians expended” — frames Christian ownership of Palestine as a blood-right to be defended against Jewish political claims.

Statement to Britain’s Envoy Sir John de Salis (December 28, 1917)

“His fear that Great Britain might hand Palestine over to the Jews to the detriment of the Christian interests.”

Source: Documented in Sergio I. Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism: Conflict in the Holy Land, 1895–1925 (Oxford University Press, 1990).

Zionism Driving Christians from the Holy Land (June 13, 1921)

In the allocution to the College of Cardinals, in the Italian original:

“Indeed, in the Holy Land the condition of Christians has not only not improved, but has on the contrary worsened as a result of the new laws and arrangements established there, which aim — not, we say, by the will of the legislators, but certainly in effect — to drive Christianity from the positions it has hitherto occupied, in order to replace them with the Jews.“

Source: Pope Benedict XV, Allocution to the Sacred College of Cardinals, June 13, 1921. Full Italian text: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/it/speeches/documents/hf_ben-xv_spe_19210613_cattolicesimo-palestina.html

Allocution to the Sacred College — Formal Anti-Zionist Statement (June 13, 1921)

“We do not wish to deprive the Jews of their rights; we want, nevertheless, that they be not in any way preferred to the just rights of the Christians.”

Source: Allocution to the Sacred College of Cardinals, June 13, 1921. Documented in Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism; Frank J. Coppa, The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust.

Vatican Spokesman on Jewry’s “Revolutionary Spirit” (1921)

“…the Jewish race, which is permeated with a revolutionary and rebellious spirit”

…as the justification for the Holy See’s refusal to assist Zionist aspirations for Palestine.

Source: Vatican spokesman, 1921. Cited in Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance, Vol. 4 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1960), p. 47.

Spiritus Paraclitus — The Church Richer Than the Synagogue (1920)

“The choicest things of all the nations have come and the Lord’s House is filled with glory… With jewels like these is the Church richer than ever was the Synagogue; with these living stones is the House of God built up and eternal peace bestowed upon her.”

Source: Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, §63, September 15, 1920. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_15091920_spiritus-paraclitus.html

VIII. Cardinal Pietro Gasparri — Secretary of State (1914–1930)

Cardinal Pietro Gasparri served as Secretary of State under Benedict XV and Pius XI, making him the Vatican’s principal diplomatic voice on Palestine throughout the critical 1917–1930 period.

On the Balfour Declaration (December 18, 1917)

“Britain has apparently assumed an obligation towards the Jews to whom they will hand over a part of the administration of Palestine. Influenced by the big Jewish bankers of England and the United States, the British politicians do not sufficiently take into account the deep difference which exists between them and the Jewish people. It seems the British politicians fail to appreciate the dangers of this solution for Christian interests in the Holy Land.”

Source: Cardinal Pietro Gasparri to Jules Van den Heuvel, December 18, 1917. Cited in Sergio I. Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism (Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 122; reproduced in Rosemary and Herman Ruether, Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land (Lutterworth Press, 2014), pp. 126–127.

The “Most Feared Danger” — A Jewish State (late 1917–early 1918)

“The danger that we most fear is the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. We would have found nothing wrong in Jews entering that country, and setting up agricultural colonies. But that they be given the rule over the Holy Places is intolerable for Christians.”

Source: Cardinal Pietro Gasparri to the Belgian diplomatic representative. Cited in Jewish Virtual Library, “Vatican”; Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism.

On the Secular Character of Zionism (1921)

“The Zionists are not religious and are even antireligious, and therefore Zionism cannot be regarded as the fulfillment of prophecy. Zionism has no connection with the promised return of the Jews to the Holy Land.”

Source: Cardinal Pietro Gasparri to Chaim Weizmann, 1921. Cited in Tablet Magazine, “Israel as the Jesus Among Nations.”

Official Note to the League of Nations (May 15, 1922)

“The Holy See is not opposed to the Jews in Palestine having civil rights equal to those possessed by other nationals and creeds, but it cannot agree to the Jews being given a privileged and preponderant position in Palestine vis-à-vis the Catholics [and other confessions].”

Source: Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Note to the Council of the League of Nations, May 15, 1922. UN Document C.436.1922.VI.

Letter of March 6, 1922

“Catholics the world over are piously devoted to this country, hallowed as it was by the presence of the Redeemer and esteemed as it is as the cradle of Christianity. If the greater part of Palestine is given to the Jewish people, this would be a severe blow to the religious attachment of Catholics to this land. To have the Jewish people in the majority would be to interfere with the peaceful exercise of these rights in the Holy Land already vested in Catholics.”

Source: Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, letter of March 6, 1922. Reproduced in Jewish Virtual Library, “The Vatican Opposes Jewish Home in Palestine (1943).”

IX. Cardinal Bourne, Cardinal Giustini, and Monsignor Barlassina

Cardinal Francis Bourne to the British Prime Minister (January 1919)

“Zionism had not received the approval of the Holy See, and if the Jews would ‘ever again dominate and rule the country, it would be an outrage to Christianity and its Divine founder.'”

Source: Cardinal Francis Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, letter to the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, January 1919. Cited in Jewish Virtual Library, “Vatican”; Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism.

Cardinal Bourne on the Palestine Mandate (1922)

“The Holy See objects to the proposals in the draft Mandate which would give to the Zionists, that is, to the newly imported Jewish population of the Holy Land, a privileged position over those who belong to other races and other religious beliefs.”

Source: The Catholic Columbian (Cincinnati), July 21, 1922.

Cardinal Filippo Giustini — Cable from Jerusalem (October 1919)

Cardinal Giustini, dispatched by Benedict XV as papal legate, cabled the Pope asking for his intervention:

[Cardinal Giustini asked the Pope to intervene] “to prevent the reestablishment of Zionist Israel in Palestine.”

Source: Cardinal Filippo Giustini, cable from Jerusalem, October 1919. Cited in Jewish Virtual Library, “Vatican”; Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism.

Monsignor Luigi Barlassina — Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem (1920–1947)

Barlassina, the Vatican’s senior ecclesiastical representative in Palestine for twenty-seven years, encapsulated the Holy See’s position in one sentence:

“Let Palestine be internationalized rather than some day be the servant of Zionism.”

Source: Monsignor Luigi Barlassina, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. Cited in Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism, p. 141; Schvindlerman, JCPA (2018).

X. Hilaire Belloc on Zionism (1922)

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), the foremost English Catholic apologist of the early twentieth century, explicitly opposed Zionism in The Jews (London: Constable, 1922). La Civiltà Cattolica cited his framework in its 1937 treatment of the Jewish question, describing him as “excluding Zionism as theoretically and practically unsuitable.”

All passages: Hilaire Belloc, The Jews (London: Constable, 1922). Project Gutenberg eBook #50556.

On the Permanent and Irresolvable Jewish Problem

“It is the thesis of this book that the continued presence of the Jewish nation intermixed with other nations alien to it presents a permanent problem of the gravest character: that the wholly different culture, tradition, race and religion of Europe make Europe a permanent antagonist to Israel, and that the recent and rapid intensification of that antagonism gives to the discovery of a solution immediate and highly practical importance.”

(p. 3)

On the Impossibility of Jewish Absorption

“It is true of the Jews, and of the Jews alone, that they alone have maintained, whether through the special action of Providence or through some general biological or social law of which we are ignorant, an unfailing entity and an equally unfailing differentiation between themselves and the society through which they ceaselessly move.”

(p. 8)

The Catholic Church as Guardian of the Sharp Distinction

“Wherever the Catholic Church is powerful, and in proportion as it is powerful, the traditional principles of the civilization of which it is the soul and guardian will always be upheld. One of these principles is the sharp distinction between the Jew and ourselves.”

(p. 209)

“The Catholic Church is the conservator of an age-long European tradition, and that tradition will never compromise with the fiction that a Jew can be other than a Jew. Wherever the Catholic Church has power, and in proportion to its power, the Jewish problem will be recognized to the full.”

(p. 210)

On Church-Synagogue Hostility as Ancient

“Between the Catholic Church and the Synagogue there had been hostility from the first century.”

(p. 221)

La Civiltà Cattolica‘s 1937 Citation: Belloc Against Zionism

“…excluding Zionism as theoretically and practically unsuitable.”

Source: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1937, Vol. 88, No. 2, summarizing Belloc’s position.

XI. G. K. Chesterton on Palestine (1920)

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, engaged the Palestinian question in The New Jerusalem (1920). His position was that the Jews are genuinely a distinct nation requiring a national home — but his framing of the problem implies that their presence in Christian lands is an anomaly requiring resolution, and his sympathy for Zionism was conditional and ambivalent.

On the Jews as Requiring a Distinct National Home

“I think it quite right that the great and powerful ancient people should have their own flag and their own land and their own laws; and equally right that where they live among us they should be distinguished by some dress or description, so that nobody should be deceived and nobody should suffer.”

Source: G. K. Chesterton, The New Jerusalem (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920).

XII. Pope Pius XI (1922–1939)

Confidential Papal Instructions Against Jewish Immigration to Palestine (1924)

“Pope Pius XI, according to the Jewish Tageblatt of Lodz, has issued confidential instructions from the Vatican in Rome to all of his European representatives, condemning the movement to establish a Jewish Homeland in Palestine… The Papal representatives are instructed by the Pope to take whatever steps they can to prevent the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine and to prevent wherever possible Jewish immigration to Palestine. They are also instructed to use their influence with European governments toward making more difficult immigration to Palestine.”

Source: The Sentinel (Chicago), vol. 4, no. 10, March 7, 1924, p. 1, citing the Jüdisches Tageblatt of Lodz. National Library of Israel digitized archive.

Quas Primas (1925) — Universal Submission to Christ the King

“His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.”

Source: Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, §18, December 11, 1925. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html

Suppression of the Amici Israel — Decree Cum Supremae (March 25, 1928)

When the Amici Israel sought to soften the Good Friday prayer’s language, Pius XI approved the Holy Office’s decree suppressing the entire organization. The decree articulated the Church’s supersessionist theology:

“…the Catholic Church has always been accustomed to pray for the Jewish people, who were the depository of the divine promises up until the arrival of Jesus Christ, notwithstanding their subsequent blindness, or rather, because of this very blindness.”

“…the association ‘Amici Israel’ then embarked on a plan of acting and communicating at variance with the sense of the Church, the mind of the holy Fathers of the Church, and the sacred liturgy…”

Source: Decree Cum Supremae, Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, March 25, 1928. Full text: https://novusordowatch.org/pius11-abolition-friends-of-israel/

XIII. La Civiltà Cattolica — Anti-Zionist Articles, 1920–1937

Jews as “The Filthy Element” Seeking to “Proclaim the Communist Republic Tomorrow” (1920)

Jews [were] “the filthy element” who “were avid for money” and who wanted to “proclaim the communist republic tomorrow.”

Source: Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica College of Writers], La Civiltà Cattolica, 1920. Cited in Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows (Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 3–23.

The Anti-Zionist Theological Formula — Active Authority Through 1922

The post-Balfour anti-Zionist position of the journal rested on Ballerini’s 1897 formula, reprinted as living authority throughout 1920–1922:

“According to the sacred pages, the Jewish people must always subsist dispersed and wandering among other peoples… As for rebuilding a Jerusalem that will become the centre of a revived Israelite Kingdom, it must be noted that this is contrary to the prediction of Christ himself.”

Source: Ballerini (1897), cited in all La Civiltà Cattolica anti-Zionist writing of 1920–1922; Treccani, fn. 52; Minerbi, Il Vaticano, la Terra Santa, il Sionismo (Milan, 1988), p. 145.

Fr. Enrico Rosa, S.J. — “The World Revolution and the Jews” (October 12, 1922)

Passages from the verified English translation: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-world-revolution-and-the-jews; Italian original at HathiTrust: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924106819075

The World Is Sick — Revolutionary Chaos Orchestrated by Hidden Power:

“The world is sick… Everywhere peoples stirred by inexplicable convulsions: States consumed by public debt; nations famished by the scarcity of provisions; currencies more ruinous every day… The mob… appears to transform itself into a tragic carnival of upheavals and strikes, expecting to proclaim the communist republic tomorrow… Who drives this rabble of parties, of leagues, of lodges, who guides this movement of universal revolution that overturns human society from one end of the world to the other?”

(p. 111)

The Synagogue Accused — The Talmud as a Precept of Harming Christians:

“Sinister voices rise up from multiple quarters to accuse the Synagogue. The wolf is always a wolf: ancient grudges give credit to new suspicions and rekindle a wound left to scar but never healed… to its tenacity in hiding, we assert the right to rummage and bring to light what concerns us, what affects the public good of the Christian people, to whom, according to the Talmudists, harming is a precept of law and a merit of religion.”

(p. 113)

Jewish Seizure of Bolshevik Power:

“In short, from the sum of these details, one fact emerges clearly and manifestly: this [Jewish] race, which until yesterday lay in the dead ends, in the lowest depths of Russian life, has suddenly shaken itself and seized the throne: yesterday it was nothing; today it is everything and everywhere…”

(p. 116)

Fr. Enrico Rosa, S.J. — “The Jewish Danger and the Friends of Israel” (May 19, 1928)

Following the suppression of the Amici Israel, Rosa argued that Catholics must maintain:

“…a ‘healthy perception of danger coming from the Jews’ through their influence on politics and religion as well as their association with revolution since 1789.”

Source: La Civiltà Cattolica, vol. II, quaderno 1870, May 19, 1928.

Anonymous — On Jewish World Domination (1936)

“The Jews… have become the masters of the world.”

“Their prototype is the banker, and their supreme ideal to turn the world into an incorporated joint-stock company.”

“…if not all, still not a few Jews constitute a grave and permanent danger to society.”

Source: La Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 87 (1936), nos. 37–38, 39–40. Cited in Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Civiltà Cattolica, La”: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/la-civilt-cattolica

“The Jewish Question and Zionism” (1937) — Fr. Bonsirven’s Critique of the Balfour Declaration

“Zionism is based on a double misunderstanding, an original misunderstanding, from which it cannot free itself and which will inevitably lead to ever-resurgent conflicts. In 1918, England, with self-interested aims, promised, in the name of the Allies, on the one hand to the Arabs the creation of a great empire… and on the other hand to the Jews the establishment of a ‘home’ in the same territory in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration, in the original design… promised the ‘reconstruction of Palestine as a national home of the Jewish people’; in the rectified formula, instead, it granted no more than ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’; thus only the right to found Jewish institutions. Nevertheless, Zionists strive, with progressive implementations, to reach the coveted goal: a true Jewish State.”

Source: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1937, Vol. 88, No. 2; Fr. Bonsirven S.J. cited therein from Études, Feb. 20, 1937, p. 515.

The same article explicitly endorsed Belloc’s rejection of Zionism and warned of the movement as British imperialism:

“On the other hand, Zionism is considered as an enterprise of British imperialism and a new source of conflicts in the Mediterranean… Paolo Orano… makes a very lively indictment against the Jewish-British Zionist movement, and intimates to the Jews of Italy to declare themselves against Zionism, if they do not want to arouse an anti-Semitism, which has been foreign to Italian moderation so far.”

Source: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1937, Vol. 88, No. 2.

XIV. St. Maximilian Kolbe — The Zionist Programme and the Protocols (1926)

St. Maximilian Kolbe, O.F.M. Conv. (1894–1941), canonized 1982, was editor of Rycerz Niepokalanej (Knight of the Immaculate), the most widely circulated Catholic periodical in Poland. His anti-Zionism was framed in terms of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a programme for Jewish world domination.

All passages: Gli Scritti di Massimiliano Kolbe (Florence: Edizioni Città di Vita, 1975–1978), vol. III.

The Zionist Programme for World Domination — The Protocols (September 1926)

“These gentlemen think they rule; meanwhile, let’s listen to what the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ write. Protocol 11 says: ‘This is the program of the new constitution being prepared. We will create and execute laws and governments: 1) in the form of projects submitted to the legislative body, 2) with the help of presidential decrees…, 3) and at the appropriate moment — in the form of a coup d’état.'”

“‘The goyim are a flock of sheep, and we are wolves to them, and you know what happens to sheep when wolves sneak into the fold.'”

(Gli Scritti, vol. III, pp. 293–300)

To His Fellow Masons, From Jewish Masters

“Gentlemen Masons, you who recently rejoiced at the Congress in Bucharest that Freemasonry is developing, think about it and say honestly, is it not better to serve the Creator in inner peace, in joyful love, than to obey the orders of the mysterious, insidious, unknown, cruel Jewish clique that hates you?”

Source: Rycerz Niepokalanej, No. 9, September 1926 (Gli Scritti, vol. III, pp. 293–300).

XV. E. Sylvester Berry — Zionism and the Antichrist (1921)

Monsignor E. Sylvester Berry (1879–1954) was an American Catholic seminary professor whose reading of the Apocalypse connected the Zionist movement to end-times prophecy — specifically to the rise of the Antichrist in Jerusalem.

Antichrist, Zionism, and the Gathering of the Jews in Jerusalem

“Antichrist will establish himself in Jerusalem where a great number of Jews will have gathered through some such movement as Zionism. The vast majority of Jews have ever clung to the belief that God will one day restore the kingdom of Israel through a Messias, an ‘Anointed one’ of the house of David.”

Source: E. Sylvester Berry, The Apocalypse of St. John (Columbus: John W. Winterich, 1921), Part II, commentary on Chapter XIII.

XVI. Rev. Denis Fahey — Theological Anti-Zionism (1935–1953)

Father Denis Fahey (1883–1954), professor of philosophy at Holy Ghost Missionary College, Kimmage, Dublin, was the most systematic Catholic theological opponent of Zionism in the English-speaking world. His works received ecclesiastical imprimaturs.

The Distinction Between Antisemitism and Opposition to “Jewish Naturalism”

“The Hitlerite naturalistic or anti-supernatural régime in Germany gave to the world the odious spectacle of a display of Anti-Semitism, that is, of hatred of the Jewish Nation. Yet all the propaganda about that display of Anti-Semitism should not have made Catholics forget the existence of age-long Jewish Naturalism or Anti-Supernaturalism.”

Source: Rev. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation (Dublin, 1953), Foreword. Nihil Obstat: Jacobus Browne; Imprimatur: †Jacobus, Episcopus Fernensis, January 26, 1953.

The “Clever Extension” of the Term Antisemitism Against Catholic Opposition to Zionism

“Forgetfulness of the disorder of Jewish Naturalistic opposition to Christ the King is keeping Catholics blind to the danger that is arising from the clever extension of the term ‘Anti-Semitism,’ with all its war-connotation in the minds of the unthinking, to include any form of opposition to the Jewish Nation’s naturalistic aims. For the leaders of the Jewish Nation, to stand for the rights of Christ the King is logically to be ‘anti-Semitic.'”

Source: Rev. Denis Fahey, The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation (1953), Foreword.

The Natural Versus the Supernatural Messiah — The Core of the Anti-Zionist Argument

“The natural messias to whom the Jews look forward is to bring happiness to the world by the imposition of Jewish domination. It cannot be otherwise, given their messianic aspirations. Our Lord asked them to be the heralds of a supranational kingdom. Their refusal meant that they elected instead to impose their national form on the world, and they have put all their intense energy and tenacity into the struggle for the organisation of the future messianic age.”

Source: Rev. Denis Fahey, The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation (1953), Chapter IV.

Against Racial Hatred, For Supernatural Love

“We must never forget that [Jesus and the Virgin Mary were Jews] or allow ourselves to fall victims to an attitude of hatred for Jews as a nation. We must always bear in mind that He is seeking to draw them on to that supernatural union with Himself which they reject.”

Source: Rev. Denis Fahey, cited at catholicism.org.

The Certitude of Eventual Jewish Conversion

“A day will come when the Jewish Nation will cease to oppose order and will turn in sorrow and repentance to Him Whom they rejected before Pilate. That will be a glorious triumph for the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother. Until that day dawns, however, their naturalistic opposition to the True Supernatural Order of the world must be exposed and combated.”

Source: Rev. Denis Fahey, The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation (1953), Foreword.

XVII. Pope Pius XII (1939–1958)

Mystici Corporis Christi (1943) — The Transfer from Synagogue to Church

“By the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished… To such an extent, then, was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from the many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as Our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom.”

Citing Augustine:

“…with the rending of the veil of the temple it happened that the dew of the Paraclete’s gifts, which heretofore had descended only on the fleece, that is on the people of Israel, fell copiously and abundantly (while the fleece remained dry and deserted) on the whole earth, that is on the Catholic Church, which is confined by no boundaries of race or territory.”

Source: Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, §§29–31, June 29, 1943. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html

In Multiplicibus Curis (1948) — Internationalization of Jerusalem Against Jewish Sovereignty

Issued during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, making no recognition of the new State of Israel, and explicitly calling for Jerusalem’s internationalization:

“…it would be opportune to give Jerusalem and its outskirts, where are found so many and such precious memories of the life and death of the Savior, an international character which, in the present circumstances, seems to offer a better guarantee for the protection of the sanctuaries.”

Source: Pope Pius XII, In Multiplicibus Curis, §8, October 24, 1948. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_24101948_in-multiplicibus-curis.html

Redemptoris Nostri Cruciatus (1949) — Repeated Demand for Internationalization

Issued on Good Friday 1949, with no recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem:

“We have already insisted… that the time has come when Jerusalem and its vicinity… should be accorded and legally guaranteed an ‘international’ status, which in the present circumstances seems to offer the best and most satisfactory protection for these sacred monuments.”

“…Let them… use every legitimate means to persuade the rulers of nations… to accord to Jerusalem and its surroundings a juridical status whose stability under the present circumstances can only be adequately assured by a united effort of nations that love peace and respect the right of others.”

Source: Pope Pius XII, Redemptoris Nostri Cruciatus, §§9–10, April 15, 1949. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_15041949_redemptoris-nostri-cruciatus.html

XVIII. Vatican Diplomatic Opposition to a Jewish State (1917–1948)

Archbishop Cicognani to Ambassador Taylor (1943)

“It is true that at one time Palestine was inhabited by the Hebrew Race, but there is no axiom in history to substantiate the necessity of a people returning to a country they left nineteen centuries before. If a ‘Hebrew Home’ is desired, it would not be too difficult to find a more fitting territory than Palestine. With an increase in the Jewish population there, grave new, international problems would arise.”

Source: Letter of Archbishop Cicognani to Ambassador Taylor, 1943. Declassified from Vatican wartime archives, “The Holy See and the Victims of the War, January–December 1943.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 26, 1976. Full text: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-vatican-opposes-jewish-home-in-palestine-1943

Cardinal Maglione, Vatican Secretary of State (1943)

“If Palestine fell under the rule of the Jews, it would give birth to new and grave international problems and make the Catholics of the world unhappy. It would cause righteous complaints of the Holy See and would poorly reciprocate the charitable concern that the Holy See has had and continues to have for non-Aryans.”

Source: Letter of Cardinal Maglione to the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington, 1943. Declassified from Vatican wartime archives. Full text at Jewish Virtual Library.

Vatican Aide-Mémoire (June 22, 1943)

The 1943 Vatican aide-mémoire restated the foundational objection, appending Gasparri’s 1922 letters:

“It is true that at one time Palestine was inhabited by the Hebrew Race, but there is no axiom in history to substantiate the necessity of a people returning to a country they left nineteen centuries before. If a ‘Hebrew Home’ is desired, it would not be too difficult to find a more fitting territory than Palestine. With an increase in the Jewish population there, grave new, international problems would arise. Catholics the world over would be aroused.”

Source: Vatican aide-mémoire, June 22, 1943. Full text at Jewish Virtual Library: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-vatican-opposes-jewish-home-in-palestine-1943

The American Catholic Network Against Zionism

“The Vatican was supported in its anti-Zionist stance by an international network of national Catholic hierarchies, lay Catholic organizations and an active Catholic press. Leading this international Roman Catholic lobby against Zionism were the Catholic bishops of the United States.”

Source: Adriano E. Ciani, “The Vatican, American Catholics and the Struggle for Palestine, 1917–1958,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Western Ontario, 2011.

XIX. L’Osservatore Romano on Zionism (1897–1948)

1892 — Warning of Popular Violence Against Jewish “Rapacious Tyranny”

“The people’s ire [against the Jews’ ‘rapacious tyranny’], although at the moment somewhat dampened by sentiments of Christian charity and by the tender influence of the Catholic clergy, may at any moment erupt like a volcano and strike like a thunderbolt.”

Source: L’Osservatore Romano, 1892; David I. Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001).

1897/1898 — On the Dreyfus Affair and the Deicide People

“The Jewish race, the deicide people, wandering throughout the world, brings with it everywhere the pestiferous breath of treason.”

Source: L’Osservatore Romano, 1897/1898; cited in Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews.

May 13–14, 1948 — On the Declaration of Israeli Statehood

“Modern Zionism is not the true heir of Biblical Israel… Therefore, the Holy Land and its sacred sites belong to Christianity, which is the true Israel.”

Source: Julian Schvindlerman, “The Vatican’s Path toward Official Recognition of Israel,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (March 7, 2019); Uri Bialer, Cross on the Star of David (Jerusalem, 2006), p. 11.

June 12, 1948 — On Israel and Soviet Communism

“The birth of Israel gives Moscow a basis in the Near East through which the microbes can grow and being disseminated.”

Source: Holy See–Israel Relations, Wikipedia, citing L’Osservatore Romano, June 12, 1948.

La Documentation Catholique (1948)

Following Pius XII’s 1949 encyclical, the French Catholic publication La Documentation Catholique declared:

“Zionism is the new Nazism.”

Source: La Documentation Catholique, 1948. Cited in Wikipedia, “Holy See–Israel relations.”

XX. Post-1948: Non-Recognition, the Six-Day War, and the Road to the 1993 Fundamental Agreement

Pius XII’s Non-Recognition — A Political Act Against Zionism

The Vatican did not recognize the State of Israel at its founding in May 1948, nor at any point during Pius XII’s pontificate, which lasted until 1958. This non-recognition was not passive but active — the Holy See:

  • Tried to condition Israel’s admission to the United Nations in 1949 on its adherence to the corpus separatum concept for Jerusalem under UN Resolution 181 — and failed.
  • Continued to report about Israel from “Tel Aviv” rather than “Jerusalem” in L’Osservatore Romano, a deliberate diplomatic signal of non-recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the holy city.

Source: Holy See–Israel Relations, Wikipedia; Schvindlerman, JCPA (2018).

Pope John XXIII and Non-Recognition (1958–1963)

The pontificate of John XXIII, despite his launching of the Second Vatican Council and the beginnings of the Nostra Aetate process, maintained the Vatican’s non-recognition of Israel. Vatican II produced no statement on Zionism or the State of Israel.

Pope Paul VI — The 1964 Holy Land Visit: Refusing to Name the State of Israel

When Paul VI became the first modern pope to visit the Holy Land in January 1964, the visit was deliberately staged to avoid any implication of recognizing the State of Israel:

“Aware of the political implications of this trip, Paul VI preferred to give it an exclusively religious character. Not once did he mention the name of the Hebrew state. At the time, no Arab country recognized its existence, nor did the Holy See.”

Paul VI met the Israeli President near Megiddo but refused to call him “President,” referred throughout to “the Holy Land” rather than “Israel,” and avoided Israeli-controlled western Jerusalem. Vatican official statements regarding the visit refrained from mentioning the State of Israel by name.

Source: Holy See–Israel Relations, Wikipedia; Aleteia, “Sensitive diplomatic relations between Holy See and Israel” (October 14, 2023); Jerusalem Post, “Pope’s 1964 Holy Land trip laid foundations for ties with Israel” (January 4, 2017).

Pope Paul VI and the Six-Day War (June 1967)

During the Six-Day War, in which Israel captured Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights, Paul VI actively pressured Israel to declare Jerusalem an open city under international control:

“During the war, Pope Paul VI pressured Israel to declare Jerusalem an open city under international control, but Israel had already celebrated what it termed the city’s reunification.”

Source: Middle East Forum, “The Vatican Joins the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”; Holy See–Israel Relations, Wikipedia.

On the eve of the war, Paul VI wrote to UN Secretary-General U Thant (June 5, 1967):

“We are deeply saddened and concerned by the developments of events in the Middle East, and while we pray that divine mercy may preserve that area and the world from suffering and destruction We ask you to make every effort to ensure that the United Nations can stop the conflict.”

Source: EWTN Vatican, “The Popes, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land”; Pope Paul VI, Message to UN Secretary-General U Thant, June 5, 1967.

Pope Paul VI — Address to the College of Cardinals (December 1967): “Special Statute” for Jerusalem

Following the Six-Day War, Paul VI modified the Vatican’s longstanding demand for the full internationalization of Jerusalem, replacing it with a call for a “special statute”:

[Paul VI called for] “a special statute, internationally guaranteed” for Jerusalem and the holy places.

This shift was significant: from demanding full UN corpus separatum status to seeking an internationally guaranteed special regime — but still explicitly refusing to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the holy city.

Source: Holy See–Israel Relations, Wikipedia; First Things, “Israel and the Vatican.”

Pope John Paul II — Redemptionis Anno (April 20, 1984)

In his Apostolic Letter Redemptionis Anno, John Paul II repeated Paul VI’s concerns and tied the unresolved status of Jerusalem to the broader Middle East conflict:

“…the ‘failure to find an adequate solution to the question of Jerusalem’ compromised further the ‘longed-for peaceful and just settlement of the crisis of the whole Middle East.'”

Source: Pope John Paul II, Redemptionis Anno, April 20, 1984. Cited in Global Voices, “Palestinian voices: A papacy that felt closer” (May 13, 2025).

Pope John Paul II — Meeting with Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Rights

John Paul II met PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat several times, against the protests of the Israeli government. In his Jubilee pilgrimage to the Holy Land (March 2000):

“The Holy See has always recognized that the Palestinian people have the natural right to a homeland, and the right to be able to live in peace and tranquillity with the other peoples of this area.”

Source: Pope John Paul II, speech in Palestinian autonomous territories, March 2000. Cited in Global Voices.

The Fundamental Agreement (December 30, 1993) — Forty-Five Years of Non-Recognition Ends

Formal diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel were established on December 30, 1993, after the adoption of a “Fundamental Agreement” — forty-five years after Israel’s declaration of independence.

The reasons were primarily pragmatic and political rather than theological:

  • The Oslo Accords of September 1993, in which the PLO recognized Israel, meant the Vatican could no longer maintain a position of non-recognition more extreme than that of the Palestinians themselves.
  • The Vatican continued to contest Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem even after recognition.
  • The Holy See simultaneously established relations with the PLO in 1994, and in 2015 officially recognized the State of Palestine.

“The establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1993–94, on the other hand, was a belated political consequence of the pastoral approach towards Judaism as reflected in Nostra aetate. It was also a result of the new political reality, which began with the Madrid Conference and later continued with the Oslo peace process, after which the Vatican could not continue to ignore a State that even the Palestinians had initiated formal relations with.”

Source: Holy See–Israel Relations, Wikipedia.

The Fundamental Agreement itself used the diplomatically neutral language of “disputed territories and unsettled borders” to describe the areas under Israeli control — refusing to endorse Israeli sovereignty in those terms.

Source: Middle East Forum, “The Vatican Joins the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

XXI. Nostra Aetate (1965) — What It Does and Does Not Say About Zionism

Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions), promulgated October 28, 1965, represented a significant shift in Catholic pastoral language toward Judaism. On the specific question of Zionism and the State of Israel, however, it is notable primarily for what it does not say.

What Nostra Aetate Does NOT Say

  • It takes no position on Zionism or the State of Israel.
  • It does not recognize the State of Israel or endorse Jewish political claims to Palestine.
  • It does not abrogate the theological framework underlying Catholic anti-Zionism — supersessionism, the missionary mandate toward Jews, or the eschatological hope for Jewish conversion.
  • It does not define any new dogma or invoke infallibility.
  • It does not use the word “deicide” — that word was removed across successive drafts.

What Nostra Aetate Does Say

The Declaration affirms:

  • “The Church is the new people of God” — supersessionism retained.
  • “The Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ” — the factual accusation retained, though collective guilt denied.
  • An eschatological hope that “all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice” — the traditional conversion hope, veiled but present.
  • Christ died “because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation.”

The “Condemns” Weakened to “Decries”

A suggestion apparently originating from Paul VI himself changed the text at the last moment, softening its language on antisemitism:

“The suggestion stirred no debate and was quickly accepted by vote. It was late, and nobody cared to fuss any more about little things.”

Source: Joseph Roddy, Look Magazine, January 25, 1966.

The Origin: Jules Isaac’s Audience with John XXIII (June 13, 1960)

The legislative history of Nostra Aetate Section 4 began with a single private audience. French-Jewish historian Jules Isaac met Pope John XXIII for approximately thirty minutes. Joseph Roddy reported Isaac’s account:

“I asked if I might take away some sparks of hope. John said he had a right to more than hope.”

Archbishop de Provenchères of Aix later remarked:

“It is a sign of the times that a layman, and a Jewish layman at that, has become the originator of a Council decree.”

Source: Joseph Roddy, Look Magazine, January 25, 1966.

The 88 Negative Votes

Final vote, October 28, 1965: 2,221 in favor, 88 opposed. The 88 negative votes reflected the depth of the theological tradition documented throughout this compilation.

The Vatican’s formal non-recognition of Israel continued for nearly three more decades after Nostra Aetate — making its silence on Zionism not merely incidental but an accurate expression of the Holy See’s continuing position.

XXII. Post-Conciliar Catholic Voices: Theological Anti-Zionism After 1965

Elias Friedman, O.C.D. — Zionism as Incomplete Eschatological Sign (1947–1987)

Fr. Elias Friedman, O.C.D. (1916–1999), born John Jacob Friedman in Cape Town, converted to Catholicism in 1943, became a Discalced Carmelite priest, founded the Association of Hebrew Catholics, and spent over four decades at Stella Maris Monastery on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Both his monographs bear the Nihil obstat and Imprimatur of the Archdiocese of New York. His theological anti-Zionism is particularly significant as the testimony of a Jewish Catholic living in the State of Israel itself.

Zionism as a providential sign pointing to conversion, not a fulfillment in itself:

“With the birth of Zionism … the Christian era in the history of Israel was imminent.”

“I reached the conclusion that Jewish history from the time of the French Revolution to the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine announces the entry of Israel into the phase of salvation.”

Source: Elias Friedman, O.C.D., Jewish Identity (The Miriam Press, New York, 1987), pp. 17–25.

The Jewish exile as providentially ordained:

“The people of Israel had been exiled from its land to languish in a shocking dispersion for two thousand years, because it had not believed.”

Source: The Redemption of Israel (Sheed & Ward, New York, 1947), p. 18.

Rabbinism as lacking divine authority after Christ:

“The new religious regime which we call Rabbinism … [is] destitute of divine authority.”

“Christianity passes an irrevocable act of invalidity on Rabbinical Judaism…”

Source: The Redemption of Israel, p. 58; Jewish Identity, p. 82.

The Shoah interpreted as Israel’s “crucifixion,” with the State of Israel as an incomplete “resurrection”:

“Mystically speaking, Jewry as a whole was nailed to the Cross and dies under Hitler. … On the third day, three years after the conclusion of hostilities in 1945, Jewry rose from the dead; the State of Israel was proclaimed.”

Source: Jewish Identity, pp. 125–126.

For Friedman, the secular Jewish state is an intermediate and unstable stage pointing toward Israel’s eventual conversion to Christ — not a terminal destination. The true fulfillment of Jewish destiny is not statehood but baptism.

Jacques Maritain — The Mystery of Israel and the Law of Exile (1939–1970)

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), the foremost French Catholic philosopher of the twentieth century, articulated a nuanced but fundamentally anti-Zionist position from the 1930s through the 1960s. He argued that Israel’s true vocation was not national statehood but the “earthly leavening” of the world in preparation for the eschatological conversion.

Israel as “earthly leaven” — not meant to be a nation-state:

“Whereas the Church is assigned the task of the supernatural and supra-temporal saving of the world, to Israel is assigned, in the order of temporal history and its own finalities, the work of the earthly leavening of the world. Israel is here—Israel which is not of the world—at the deepest core of the world, to irritate it, to exasperate it, to move it.”

Source: Jacques Maritain, “The Mystery of Israel.” Cited at catholicsforisrael.com.

The law of exile — Israel is disinclined toward statehood:

“The Jews of the Palestine homeland are not merely a nation; they are tending to become a state… But the great mass of Israel obeys a totally different law. It does not tend in any way to set up a temporal society. By reason of a deep vocation and by its very essence, Israel is disinclined—at least, so long as it has not brought to completion its mysterious historic mission—to become a nation, and even more, to become a state. The harsh law of exile, of the Galuth, prevents Israel from aspiring toward a common political life.”

Source: Jacques Maritain, “The Mystery of Israel.” Cited at catholicsforisrael.com.

Note on Maritain’s late reversal: In Le Mystère d’Israël (1965) and On the Church of Christ (1970), Maritain made a surprising late affirmation of a divine right of the Jewish people to the land of Canaan, stating “what God has given once is given forever.” This represents a significant departure from his earlier position and from the mainstream Catholic anti-Zionist tradition, and is documented here as an internal Catholic counter-current.

XXIII. Archbishop Cyril Bustros — Supersessionism Reasserted at the 2010 Synod

At the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops (October 2010), Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, the Greek Melkite Archbishop for the United States and head of the commission drafting the Synod’s final statement, made a statement that provoked an immediate outcry from Israel and Jewish organizations worldwide:

“The biblical concept of a promised land for the Jews cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of the Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians.”

The Archbishop added:

“The concept of the Promised Land cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians. We Christians cannot speak of the ‘Promised Land’ as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people. This is [Christian] theology.”

Source: Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, press conference at the Synod of Bishops, Special Assembly for the Middle East, October 2010. Cited in First Things, “Israel and the Vatican” (March 28, 2025); Council on Foreign Relations, “Vatican-Israel Relations.”

The statement was immediately condemned by Israeli government officials and Jewish organizations as a reassertion of radical supersessionism. Pope Benedict XVI did not publicly repudiate Bustros’s remarks, though pressure was applied.

XXIV. The Six Recurring Theological Arguments of Catholic Anti-Zionism

The sources documented throughout this compilation consistently invoke the following theological and political arguments against Zionism:

1. Supersessionism. The Catholic Church is the “true Israel” and the successor to the Synagogue. The Old Covenant was fulfilled and abrogated by the New Covenant in Christ. As L’Osservatore Romano declared in 1948: “Modern Zionism is not the true heir of Biblical Israel… the Holy Land and its sacred sites belong to Christianity, which is the true Israel.”

2. The providential nature of Jewish exile. The destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. and the subsequent Jewish dispersion were divine punishment for the rejection and crucifixion of Christ. Jewish exile is therefore theologically ordained and must persist until the eschatological conversion of the Jews. Zionism is “an arrogant presumption, in opposition to the will of God, who has punished His people, condemning them to exile and wandering.”

3. The Holy Places as Christian patrimony. Palestine was “sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ” (Pius X) and constitutes the “cradle of Christianity.” Catholic rights to the Holy Places are anterior and superior to any Jewish national claims. As Cardinal Gasparri stated: “The danger that we most fear is the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine… that they be given the rule over the Holy Places is intolerable for Christians.”

4. The secular character of Zionism. Zionism is a secular and even anti-religious movement that cannot be identified with the prophesied return of Israel. As Cardinal Gasparri stated to Weizmann: “The Zionists are not religious and are even antireligious, and therefore Zionism cannot be regarded as the fulfillment of prophecy. Zionism has no connection with the promised return of the Jews to the Holy Land.”

5. The eschatological conversion of the Jews. Catholic tradition anticipates the eventual conversion of the Jewish people to Christ at the end of time. The true Jewish destiny is not a secular state but incorporation into the Body of Christ. The State of Israel, on this reading, is at best an intermediate providential stage (Friedman), not a terminal fulfillment.

6. The rights of Arab Christians. A Jewish political majority in the Holy Land would damage the position of Catholic and Christian communities there. Benedict XV warned that Zionism aimed “to drive Christianity from the positions it has hitherto occupied, in order to replace them with the Jews”; Cardinal Bourne declared Jewish rule of the Holy Land would be “an outrage to Christianity and its Divine founder.”

XXV. Bibliography and Further Reading

A. Papal and Vatican Documents (Primary Sources)

B. Vatican Publications (La Civiltà Cattolica, L’Osservatore Romano)

C. Catholic Writers and Theologians

  • Hilaire Belloc, The Jews (London: Constable & Company, 1922). Project Gutenberg eBook #50556.
  • G. K. Chesterton, The New Jerusalem (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920).
  • E. Sylvester Berry, The Apocalypse of St. John (Columbus: John W. Winterich, 1921).
  • St. Maximilian Kolbe, Gli Scritti di Massimiliano Kolbe (Florence: Edizioni Città di Vita, 1975–1978), vol. III.
  • Rev. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation (Dublin, 1953). [Nihil obstat and Imprimatur.]
  • Jacques Maritain, “The Mystery of Israel,” in Ransoming the Time (New York: Scribner’s, 1941).
  • Jacques Maritain, Le Mystère d’Israël (Paris, 1965).
  • Elias Friedman, O.C.D., The Redemption of Israel (Sheed & Ward, New York, 1947). [Nihil obstat and Imprimatur, Archdiocese of New York.]
  • Elias Friedman, O.C.D., Jewish Identity (The Miriam Press, New York, 1987). [Nihil obstat and Imprimatur, Archdiocese of New York.]

D. Jewish and Secular Corroborating Sources

  • Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, ed. Raphael Patai, trans. Harry Zohn, vol. 5 (New York: Herzl Press / Thomas Yoseloff, 1960), pp. 1601–1605.
  • Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Civiltà Cattolica, La.” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/la-civilt-cattolica
  • Jewish Virtual Library, “The Vatican Opposes Jewish Home in Palestine (1943).” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-vatican-opposes-jewish-home-in-palestine-1943
  • Joseph Roddy, “How the Jews Changed Catholic Thinking,” Look Magazine, January 25, 1966.
  • Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance, Vol. 4 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1960), p. 47.
  • The Catholic Tribune (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), May 12, 1904 (Merry del Val interview on Zionism).
  • The Catholic Columbian (Cincinnati), July 21, 1922 (Cardinal Bourne on the Palestine Mandate).
  • The Sentinel (Chicago), March 7, 1924 (Pius XI’s confidential instructions against Zionism).

E. Secondary Scholarship

  • Sergio I. Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism: Conflict in the Holy Land, 1895–1925 (Oxford University Press, 1990). [The definitive scholarly monograph on this topic. Digital edition at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/vaticanzionismco0000mine/]
  • Doreen Ingrams, ed., Palestine Papers 1917–1922: Seeds of Conflict (London: John Murray, 1972). [Primary British diplomatic documents on the Mandate period, including Vatican opposition to Zionism. Digital edition at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/palestinepapers10000ingr]
  • David I. Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001).
  • Uri Bialer, Cross on the Star of David (Jerusalem: Ben Gurion University Press, 2006).
  • Frank J. Coppa, The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2006).
  • George Emile Irani, The Papacy and the Middle East: The Role of the Holy See in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1962–1984 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989).
  • Rosemary and Herman Ruether, “The Vatican, Zionism, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” in Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land (Lutterworth Press, 2014), pp. 118–140.
  • Julian Schvindlerman, “The Vatican’s Path toward Official Recognition of Israel,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (March 7, 2019). https://jcpa.org/article/the-vaticans-path-toward-official-recognition-of-israel/
  • Adriano E. Ciani, “The Vatican, American Catholics and the Struggle for Palestine, 1917–1958,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Western Ontario, 2011.
  • Livia Rokach, The Catholic Church and the Question of Palestine (London: Saqi Books, 1987).
  • Tullia Catalan, “Sionismo e stampa cattolica italiana (1897–1917),” Storicamente (2011). https://storicamente.org/catalan
  • Simon Levis Sullam, “Per una storia dell’antisemitismo cattolico in Italia,” Cristiani d’Italia (Treccani, 2011).
  • Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations (CCJR), primary texts and Nostra Aetate draft history: https://www.ccjr.us
  • Council on Foreign Relations, “Vatican-Israel Relations.” https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/vatican-israel-relations