Against Catholic Zionism

In 2018, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI addressed in an essay how the Vatican historically came to accept the idea of a modern State of Israel. It was only on the grounds of it being a modern constitutional State and operating according to international law. He emphasized the decision was not done without a “theological doctrine” and explained:

[at the core of this Christian doctrine] is the conviction that a theologically-understood state—a Jewish faith-state [Glaubenstaat] that would view itself as the theological and political fulfillment of the promises [given to Abraham]—is unthinkable within history according to Christian faith and contrary to the Christian understanding of the promises [given to Abraham about the Land].¹

For orthodox Christians, in no way can the establishment of a modern State of Israel be confused with the fulfillment of the promises given to Abraham because Jesus is the true fulfillment of those promises. To say otherwise would be akin to heresy, the denial of a doctrine. It would deny Jesus fulfilled the Law [Torah] and the Prophets. As fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, we speak of Israel being reconstituted and not of Israel being replaced in supersessionism.

The original form of Zionism, which the Vatican informally accepted, was one founded on a secular movement of Jewish ethnicity. In the early 20th century, the secularism and agnosticism of its leaders seemingly posed little threat of becoming a “faith-state.” Since the Ottoman Empire was in collapse since WWI and left a power vacuum in the Levant, and since World War II ended the Jewish Holocaust with many displaced Jews, the Vatican was willing to accept Jews forming a modern constitutional state within certain territories of the also diminishing British protectorate.² Ancient Jewish ties to Palestine and sympathies for their terrible persecutions made sense for the Vatican to accept what the British inaugurated and left behind.

In the middle of the 20th century, the Vatican certainly never believed or supported that later generations of Jews would advocate violating international law with illegal settlements. They did not foresee appeals to herem—as found under Moses and Joshua—becoming mainstream in modern Israel or that the United States’ fundamentalist communities would encourage Israel behaving like an Old Testament “faith-state.” It would have never supported such a state if it believed serious political powers and religious movements would advocate for restoring a third temple and animal sacrifice. “But religious forces were also always at work in Zionism, and to the surprise of agnostic fathers [of the original Zionism], a devotion to religion has often arisen in the new generation.”³ Now supported by misled evangelicals of a fundamentalist bent, today’s Zionism is no longer your grandfather’s Zionism. Now supported by misled evangelicals of a fundamentalist bent, today’s Zionism is no longer your grandfather’s Zionism.Tweet This

Sixty years after Vatican II, Benedict XVI’s essay called for phase two of dialogue between Jews and Christians. He agreed that Romans 11:29—“the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable”—was the right place to start the first phase of dialogue since Vatican II. However, acknowledging changes in Zionism since then, he suggested a new phase of dialogue was now necessary: 

The formula of the “never-revoked covenant” may have been helpful in a first phase of the new dialogue between Jews and Christians. But it is not suited in the long run to express in an adequate way the magnitude of the reality.⁴

The earthly Jewish Second Temple was destroyed irrevocably two thousand years ago, and God clearly never wanted an earthly Third Temple built. Christianity had become the fulfillment of the Sinai Covenant (cf. 1 Peter 2:9) through the blood of the Messiah, and His resurrected body became the reconstituted and mystical Temple (cf. Revelation 21:22). The promise of the Land was always inseparable from the Temple (cf. Deuteronomy 12:5). Since an earthly Temple is no longer wanted by God, then religious grounds for claims of a physical Land are also obsolete since the Messiah became the Temple and sign of the Land. 

For phase two of dialogue, Benedict felt the need to emphasize that the second phase of dialogue must center on an additional quote from the New Testament, found in Second Timothy: “if we deny [Jesus], he also will deny us” (2 Timothy 2:12).⁵ This is part of the magnitude of the reality which authentic dialogue must include. There is not one covenant for the Jews and another for Christians. Jesus brought the Old Law, civil and ceremonial, to God’s true goal.

It would be a rejection of Christ to sponsor a return to the Old Law which God brought to an end physically in A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple [commemorated as Tisha B’Av]. Christians are not required and should not support any form of Zionism which ignores two thousand years of advancement in law and worship or supplants Christian morals. We don’t accept Sharia law where it disagrees with Christian morals, and we don’t support Old Law where it ignores how Jesus fulfilled it. We certainly don’t return to animal sacrifice. Christianity was God’s original intention, and that is why it was last in God’s plan. What is first in intention is last in execution.

Too many Christians, especially evangelical fundamentalists, falsely pretend that the return of Jews to their ancestral homeland is part of a messianic fulfillment. Such false prophecy and false doctrine uses God’s name in vain for illegal settlements and activity. This essay explains why much of today’s Zionism misunderstands God’s promises of the Land to Abraham. It wishes to show the magnitude of the situation.

Interpreting God’s Promises and Plans with St. Paul and St. John of the Cross

Along with the great Doctor of the Church John of the Cross, it will be demonstrated that the geographical territory of the Amorites, Canaanites, and Philistines (Palestine) promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were only an initial pledge of God’s faithfulness and plan for all of humanity. The geographical territory was never the ultimate Land that God meant by His promises. Even Abraham at times misunderstood God. The physical fulfillment of obtaining the geographical Land was always only meant to be for the sake of a greater spiritual purpose. If we are to understand what St. Paul meant in Romans 11 that “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29), then we need to first grasp principles which St. Paul established in his First Letter to Corinthians. They are the same principles St. John of the Cross draws upon to explain God’s promises.

 In First Corinthians, the greatest student of Rabbi Gamaliel explains: “it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual” (1 Corinthians 15:46). In other words, what is first in intention is last in execution. If God’s ultimate and primary intention is to get humans to “point C,” then, knowing how humans work, God knows he has to take them first through “point A” and then “point B.” However, God’s main concern is not “point A” or “point B,” but rather “point C.” Upon arrival at “point C,” humans need to stop thinking “point A” and “point B” remain as relevant. “Point C,” the end or telos or goal is where the fulfillment is that must be cherished. Sadly, many humans miss the point and, in their sensuality and bondage to the senses, will cling instead to points A and B.

God accomplishes His spiritual purposes by teaching us with physical and sensual (sense) representations. A physical Land for a specific people was never the ultimate end or goal [telos] of God’s promises but only the beginning of a plan for a future and ultimate Israel. Just as St. Paul taught that Adam (something earthly) was only a start in order to reach the ultimate Adam (something heavenly)—cf. 1 Corinthians 15:45-50—so the racially and ceremonially defined Israel of Moses was only a start in order to reach the ultimate spiritual Israel, the Mystical Body of the Messiah. And so, St. Paul taught: “‘The first man Adam became a living soul’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” The goal is to enter the “last Adam” and not remain in the “first Adam.” The goal of Israel was always to become a member of the Jerusalem above not simply the one below.

The promise of the Land and Nation to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-2, realized with Moses) was for the sake of giving and identifying the Messiah from a Name/Dynasty (Genesis 12:2, realized with David) who would bring God’s blessings to Abraham for all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3, realized in Jesus Christ). The Messiah was the end and goal of the Torah as will be demonstrated in Romans 10:4. The first two promises of Land/Nation and Name/Dynasty are points on the road and inseparable for arriving at the promised Messiah. They were just points A and B on the road to the final destination of “point C.”  Upon arriving at “point C,” the Land and Dynasty are no longer essential and have served their purpose.

What must be clung to is the Messiah. “Point A” and “point B” were necessary to get to “point C,” the Messiah, but they are no longer essential to God’s purposes since God fulfilled His true promise of getting everyone to “point C.” So long as “point C” remains, then points A and B are always being fulfilled by God, and God’s faithfulness cannot be objectively questioned because He is faithful to His first intention. With the Messiah, a new chapter was to open for the whole world to enter God’s covenant family and for all nations to become sons of God (cf. 2 Peter 1:4; Romans 8:14). Possessing God is much greater than possessing a physical land, so the physical land is no longer relevant. This is why God allowed the Second Temple to be removed with the generation that rejected Jesus the Messiah and to teach the original tenants (Matthew 21:41) of the Land to stop clinging to the Old Law in too literal an understanding.

God’s promises to Abraham were always meant to be understood in a deeper and universal meaning with the Advent of the Messiah. Thus, God’s spiritual purposes began with physical and sense meanings (Land, Nation, Name/Dynasty), but the spiritual purposes and ends were always the more important part of the promises: all of humanity obtaining union with God (worldwide blessings) because by the Messiah, as Abraham’s heir, “all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Genesis 12:3). Once God is possessed in the souls of humans [communion], even apart from a physical geography, then the promised physical geography is taken into the greater realization of the promise. Again, “it is not the spiritual which is first [in execution] but the physical, and then the spiritual [which was first in intention]” (1 Corinthians 15:46). 

Christians are not wise to support forms of Zionism which pretend that a return of modern peoples to the former geographical territory of the Amorites, Canaanites, and Philistines, and ancient Israel or Judah is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham or Israel. No doubt it fulfills something, maybe even the warning of a falling away from Christ or denial of Christ by those holding a false Zionism, but it certainly does not fulfill God’s point of giving the Messiah through the Land and Dynasty. Rather, it is wise to listen to the Doctors of the Church on these matters.

Concerning how to understand God’s revelations and promises, the Church offers us St. John of the Cross to elaborate on Scripture in the Tradition. He is more than clear that we must understand God’s promises more and more spiritually as God begins to fulfill them. All of Chapter 19 of Book II of the Ascent of Mount Carmel explains this (as do chapters leading up to it). I will simply offer several numbered excerpts from Chapter 19 and then briefly draw upon the implicit points.

1. …To many of the ancients many prophecies and locutions of God came not to pass as they expected, because they understood them after their own manner, in the wrong way, and quite literally.

2. In Genesis, God said to Abraham, when He had brought him to the land of the Chanaanites: Tibi dabo terram hanc. Which signifies, I will give thee this land. And when He had said it to him many times, and Abraham was by now very Domine, unde scire possum, quod possessurus sim eam? That old, and He had never given it to him, though He had said this to him, Abraham answered God once again and said: Lord, whereby or by what sign am I to know that I am to possess it? Then God revealed to him that he was not to possess it in person, but that his sons would do so after four hundred years; and Abraham then understood the promise, which in itself was most true; for, in giving it to his sons for love of him, God was giving it to himself. And thus Abraham was deceived by the way in which he himself had understood the prophecy…

7. And thus, in interpreting prophecy, we have not to consider our own sense and language, knowing that the language of God is very different from ours, and that it is spiritual language, very far removed from our understanding and exceedingly difficult. So much so is it that even Jeremias, though a prophet of God, when he sees that the significance of the words of God is so different from the sense commonly attributed to them by men, is himself deceived by them and defends the people, saying: Heu, heu, heu, Domine Deus, ergone decipisti populum istum et Jerusalem, dicens: Pax erit vobis; et ecce pervenit gladius usque ad animam? Which signifies: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God, hast Thou perchance deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, “Peace will come upon you,” and seest Thou here that the sword reacheth unto their soul? For the peace that God promised them was that which was to be made between God and man by means of the Messiah Whom He was to send them, whereas they understood it of temporal peace; and therefore, when they suffered wars and trials, they thought that God was deceiving them, because there befell them the contrary of that which they expected…

12. And that this may be the better understood let us here set down a few examples. Let us suppose that a holy man is greatly afflicted because his enemies persecute him, and that God answers him, saying: I will deliver thee from all thine enemies. This prophecy may be very true, yet, notwithstanding, his enemies may succeed in prevailing, and he may die at their hands. And so if a man should understand this after a temporal manner he would be deceived; for God might be speaking of the true and principal liberty and victory, which is salvation, whereby the soul is delivered, free and made victorious over all its enemies, and much more truly so and in a higher sense than if it were delivered from them here below. And thus, this prophecy was much more true and comprehensive than the man could understand if he interpreted it only with respect to this life; for, when God speaks, His words are always to be taken in the sense which is most important and profitable, whereas man, according to his own way and purpose, may understand the less important sense, and thus may be deceived. This we see in that prophecy which David makes concerning Christ in the second Psalm saying: Reges eos in virga ferrea, et tamquam vas figuli confringes eos. That is: Thou shalt rule all the people with a rod of iron and thou shalt dash them in pieces like a vessel of clay. Herein God speaks of the principal and perfect dominion, which is eternal dominion; and it was in this sense that it was fulfilled, and not in the less important sense, which was temporal, and which was not fulfilled in Christ during any part of His temporal life.⁶

Applying St. Paul and St. John of the Cross to the Promised Land

The proper way then to understand that “the gifts and call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29) is through the prior chapter of Romans: “τέλος γὰρ νόμου Χριστὸς εἰς δικαιοσύνην παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι” (10:4) [“For Christ is the end of the law [God’s promises], that every one who has faith may be justified.”] The Greek is provided to demonstrate that telos is being translated “end.” Here, “end” or “τέλος” correctly means “goal.”⁷ So, the end of the law (torah/nomou) or the goal of torah—which was entering into communion with God—that goal is realized in Christ. Now through faith in Jesus Christ alone—instead of through temporary prefigurements of the ceremonial precepts of torah given by Moses—humans can have communion with God and receive the promises originally given to Abraham…even without the physical land.

All the promises of God are only realized in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. He is not replacing anything because He was always the true goal (telos) of the Law and Prophets. He is fulfilling and realizing all of God’s intentions for humanity. The promises of Genesis 12:1-3 are brought to completion [telos] in Christ and His Mystical Body which was always God’s plan (cf. Ephesians 1:3-10). This means Jesus is the true promised Land meant for Jews and Greeks. We witness not a supersessionism, or a replacement of the Jews, but rather a reconstituting of Israel by which all nations have access to the covenant. It is the fulfillment of God’s promises that ancient Israel existed as the first-born son in order to gather all the nations in God’s matured Israel of the Messiah—Israel reconstituted.

The reconstituted and ultimate Israel has become Jesus’ Mystical Body, gathered from all the nations of the earth. Israel is no longer merely a race by “blood or the will of the flesh or of the will of man” (John 1:12) but a new birth from God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Jesus has become the true Promised Land because He is God and the rock of our salvation. “All of Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26) is about completion of the Mystical Body of Christ, not the physical land which will be “trodden under the feet of the Gentiles” until the Second Coming. Israel is reconstituted in Christ’s Mystical Body.  The reconstituted and ultimate Israel has become Jesus’ Mystical Body, gathered from all the nations of the earth.Tweet This

When Christ came, God’s promises took on their truest and irreversible spiritual meaning. We must now cling to the Spirit of the law and not the letter. “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29) is no longer about the physical land but the call of receiving God’s name which is imprinted upon us in baptism; and we become “sharers in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), our true homeland. God is our rest in the Holy Spirit, not a temporal and physical geography. 

The Jews are not excluded from the offer to enter Jesus, the true Land who gives us rest: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy ladened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)…“For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath” (Matthew 12:8). This gift, rest, and calling is what is irrevocable. The gift was first offered to the forefathers of the Jews and is only available because of their physical forefathers and all that those forefathers suffered. Salvation is from the Jews. Interpreting the promises as still being about the physical land and geography has many bad consequences and ignores Paul’s clear meaning of Christ being the telos.

Taking God’s promises to Abraham too literally and in rejection of Jesus Christ is actually now a rejection of God. It ignores the magnitude of 2,000 years. It is against God’s revealed Messiah, and so it is rightly called anti-Christ. Misunderstanding of God’s promises has misled some Zionists to believe they have the right to drive people off the land which God has since given to the Gentiles (cf. Matthew 21:41-43; Luke 21:24). According to modern and international law, no one has the right to drive anyone off their land. Herein is the magnitude of the problem with modern Zionism. God gave the physical geography of Jerusalem to other tenants (Matthew 21:41-43) as part of God’s positive will to draw humanity to God’s Messiah instead of an earthly temple.

Unarmed women and children and innocent men are being murdered because of a false Zionist mentality. Innocent civilians are willfully slaughtered, as testified to by Catholic bishops, hospital surgeons, and Israeli soldiers. On July 19, 2024, the U.N. International Court of Justice ruled against illegal Jewish settlements. No doubt, members of Islamic groups are guilty of crimes and Israeli citizens have the right of self-defense in legally occupied territory. However, that does not give Zionists the right to exterminate innocent civilians on Church property.

God’s Messiah is clear that the former “Holy Land” will be trodden by the Gentiles (Luke 21:24) until all members of the Mystical Body of Christ (the true Holy Land) are incorporated—until Jew and Gentile (including people from all religions) have accepted Jesus and His Mystical Body reaches completion. Modern Israel has proven that phase two of dialogue is necessary: Jesus and His work must not be denied or watered down. Catholics want Jews safe and protected, but we also cannot tolerate the violation of innocent non-Jews and their rights.

1. Benedict XVI, “Grace and Vocation without Remorse: Comments on the Treatise De Iudaeis,” trans. Nick Healy, Jr., in Communio: International Catholic Review, Vol. 45 (Spring 2018), 163-184, at 178. Digital PDF. https://www.communio-icr.com/files/45.1_Benedict_XVI.pdf.
2. Ibid, 178-179.
3. Ibid, 178.
4. Ibid, 184.
5. Ibid.
6. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Chapter 19: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ascent_of_Mount_Carmel/Book_2/Chapter_XIX.
7. See Strong’s definition of telos: “τέλος télos, tel’-os; from a primary τέλλω téllō (to set out for a definite point or goal); properly, the point aimed at as a limit, i.e. (by implication) the conclusion of an act or state (termination (literally, figuratively or indefinitely), result (immediate, ultimate or prophetic), purpose); specially, an impost or levy (as paid):—+ continual, custom, end(-ing), finally, uttermost.” It is available here: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g5056/rsv/mgnt/0-1/