In an era when religion seems to be in steep decline throughout Europe and North America, it might strike some people as curious that the election of a new pope would be treated as such an earth-shaking event. But even as secularism increasingly dominates public discourse, the persistence of faith and the attention devoted to the leadership of a denomination so integral to the history of Western civilization as Catholicism is a reminder that some things transcend popular culture—and that is something all people of goodwill should celebrate.

So, it is understandable that the accession of Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, should be greeted with universal respect. That should also apply to the Jewish community, which now approaches the papacy with the sort of expectations of understanding and support that would have been unimaginable before the second half of the 20th century. The question is not where the church stands on the points of contention of the past, but how its spiritual leadership will be deployed in the present.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s much-quoted comment, in which he derisively asked “how many divisions” the pope had in his time, is generally and rightfully thought of as a clueless dismissal of the power that can stem from spiritual leadership. The Catholic Church and its new leader face many challenges, not least the fact that a growing percentage of its estimated 1.4 billion believers are in the Third World rather than Europe or the United States. It must also grapple with the conflicting demands that it be more accessible and modern while at the same time staying true to its core doctrines.

Yet the question is not whether Pope Leo XIV will be able to exercise considerable influence over world opinion on a variety of topics or whether it will be well-meaning, regardless of where people stand on the issues. Rather, it is whether the Vatican and the church it leads will play a role in combating one particularly pernicious problem with which its institutions were once closely associated. While we should not assume anything but good intentions from the pope, it is still apt to ask whether his “divisions” can or will be deployed to stem the rising tide of antisemitism sweeping across the globe as opposed to merely paying lip service to this plague—or worse, unwittingly abetting it.

Transcending the past

After the groundbreaking stands of the Second Vatican Council and then the papacy of John Paul II (1978-2005), the historic antagonism between the Church and the Jews, as well as the State of Israel, was put aside and replaced with a more open and respectful relationship. The publication of “Nostra Aetate,” the 1965 Catholic declaration on the relationship of the Church with non-Christian religions, rejected the deicide myth and established a new norm; the assumption that Catholics hated Jews became a relic of the past. That was followed up by the open philosemitism of John Paul II and the historic decision of the Vatican to recognize Israel in 1993. That put the unhappy history of relations between the papacy and the Jews firmly behind them.

Nevertheless, most Jews and Israelis were disappointed by the Church’s somewhat feeble response to the unprecedented increase in antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

To be fair, the late Pope Francis condemned antisemitism and the increase in Jew-hatred after Oct. 7. But in the last year and a half, the Vatican appeared as critical of Israel’s war of self-defense against genocidal Hamas terrorism as it was in stating its horror about the Oct. 7 atrocities against Israelis.

To many of its constituents in Europe, around the world, and particularly in the Middle East, that morally ambivalent stand about a conflict fundamentally rooted in a desire to destroy the Jewish state seems fair. It also conforms to the Church’s general opposition to war, no matter the cause or circumstances. So, it was not surprising that Pope Leo issued a call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip (as well as in the war between Russia and Ukraine) as part of his first Sunday sermon, even though that would essentially allow a terrorist regime to emerge triumphant from the destructive war it began.

Even more troubling, at times during the past 19 months, the Church has either seemed to endorse the false Hamas narrative about Israeli war crimes or harkened back to symbolism that is a reminder of its antisemitic past.

Some of this is connected to the Church’s worries about Middle Eastern Catholics, including the small remnant living under Islamist rule in Gaza, as well as the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, which seems far more interested in promoting anti-Israel Palestinian nationalism than anything else.

In this case, an understandable concern for Catholic safety in a region where, outside of Israel, religious freedom is tenuous or non-existent has most often given way to something far more troubling: a belief that the Vatican’s chief obligation there is to not contradict Arab and Muslim hatred for Jews and the Jewish state.

That is the context for any discussion about the new pope and the future of Catholic-Jewish relations.

Assumptions about papal politics

Pope Leo is in a difficult position in speaking out on any issue, let alone one as fraught as antisemitism and the global war on Israel.

His election has led to a torrent of commentary in which he is being shoehorned into various secular and political debates. That is particularly true in the United States, where some on the left are hoping that he will assume the stance of a spiritual leader to the “resistance” to President Donald Trump, as, for example, New York Times columnist David French—a rabid Never Trumper—seems to want him to be. In turn, some on the political right are making the same assumption because of his background in advocating for illegal immigrants. Yet his stands on other issues, particularly those relating to traditional morality and gender ideology, may put him on the same side of the aisle as pro-Trump conservatives.

All those attempts to inject the papacy into U.S. cultural and political warfare are likely futile. The papal version of “soft power” can be formidable, but it doesn’t translate well into American partisan disputes. That is something that will likely prove to be true, even if Pope Leo dislikes Trump or Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism as an adult. The left may fantasize about Leo assuming the same role in aiding their campaigns against Trump that Pope John Paul II had in opposing Soviet despotism in Eastern Europe in the last years of the Cold War. But the papacy and the American church simply aren’t set up to be a religious auxiliary to the Democrats or any political party.

His need to avoid being drawn into partisan arguments in a democracy, however, is not the same thing as reluctance to play a role in stemming the current rising tide of antisemitism and support for Israel’s destruction.

Contemporary Jew-hatred

No one should expect the pope to endorse any military campaign or government. But the connection between those in the Catholic world who have embraced “liberation theology”—a Marxist-influenced variant of faith that is linked to other “progressive” causes aligned with the international movement to destroy the one Jewish state on the planet—and antisemitism is something that directly concerns the Church. That’s especially true since, while his predecessor was not an adherent of liberation theology, many of his positions, as well as those of the current pope, seem adjacent to them in some ways.

Contemporary antisemitism is something that is different from the sort of hatred of Jews with which the Church was long associated. That was also true of the racist prejudice of the Nazis, which directly contradicted Catholic doctrine. Today’s antisemites target Jews not because they think Jews killed Jesus or should convert to Christianity. Instead, they are part of a bizarre red/green alliance of Marxists and Islamists.

They view Jews as part of the class of “white oppressors” according to the tenets of woke ideology like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism, who must be defeated. Or they despise them as a dhimmi minority of second-class citizens condemned to perpetual subjugation to Muslims, as well as having no right to sovereignty in the Middle East, even in their ancient homeland, where they are the indigenous people.

And as much as the Vatican opposes hatred of Jews, in general, it has been awfully quiet about specifically condemning the way supposed sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs has weaponized these ideas, as well as traditional antisemitic tropes.

A general abhorrence for all wars and concern about the fate of those who live in Gaza may have led many to wrongly condemn Israel’s justified effort to eradicate Hamas. Still, there is no excuse for allowing that to cause the Church to refuse to see how such moral equivalence is the foundation for an international movement that demonizes Jews and their state.

Anyone who comments on the papacy must do so with both respect and deference to its enormous symbolic importance to Catholics—something that transcends politics and culture. And there is no question that the contemporary Church is an institution that is vastly different from the one in the past that was rightly distrusted by Jews.

Nevertheless, neutrality about a war being fought by Palestinian terrorists and other Iranian proxies for the genocide of Jews and the end of Israel is neither moral nor in the interests of non-Muslim minorities in the Middle East. It is not unreasonable to expect the pope to use his influence to oppose those who act as the witting or unwitting allies of this despicable cause, whether or not they cloak themselves in the language of “human rights.”

It is a tribute to the courage and the righteousness of some of Pope Leo’s predecessors who fought against antisemitism that contemporary Jews can feel that they have a right to expect more from him than moral equivalence about a new war on the Jews. We should wish him well and hope he proves equal to their example.

Image - Reuters