Congress Coerces Conversion from Catholicism

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In spite of these clear words, this First Amendment right was violated on December 5, 2023, when Southern Baptist and Christian Zionist Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, pushed House Resolution 894 through Congress on that date. Here is the exact language of the violation in the Resolution: “(3) calls on elected officials and world leaders to condemn and fight all forms of domestic and global antisemitism; (4) clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism” [emphasis added].

In a nonbinding resolution, Congress attempted to change the ethos and religious perspective of the American people through a coercive bill that threatens many innocent Americans with the label of hate speech. It practically attempts the forced conversion of Catholics to Zionism. Like the nonbinding “guidelines” of the NIH during the Covid crisis—which led to coercive policy decisions and mandates of government and the private health-care industry, monitoring by Big Tech, and school closures—such nonbinding resolutions (basically guidelines) ultimately still lead to persecutions of people who are unfairly labeled and later found to have been right and/or innocent. Nonbinding resolutions and guidelines lead not only to violations of legal and protected speech but violations of religious freedom and the press. Point #4 of House Resolution 894 was unnecessary to condemn the prior listed abuses of peoples at the start of the Resolution and should be removed immediately.

What happens on social media and in Big Tech when policies already exist and forbid hate speech and then Congress announces resolutions and guidelines that anti-Zionism is hate speech and so redefines antisemitism? Do Palestinian Christians and Muslims in the West Bank have no right to condemn brutal religious colonialism to which even former Israeli government ministers testify against, like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and retired heads of Israeli security agencies? What about Americans who disagree with Israeli policies? Foreign leaders can silence our freedom of speech? What about judges from the ICC who issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu? 

Did Congress ever consider they would be enforcing Netanyahu’s policies of ignoring religious settler abuses through their December 5, 2023, Resolution? Did they intend to support treating Gazan women and children as enemy combatants, as substantially alleged by countless medical doctors and trusted humanitarian agencies, including Jewish ones? As of December 1, 2024, the former Minister of Defense under Netanyahu until 2016, Moshe Ya’alon, accused Netanyahu’s government of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and stated, “At the end of the day, war crimes are being committed.”

Just as serious to American law, did the Mike Johnson and his associates ever consider that some forms of anti-Zionism are actually intrinsic to the defined religious beliefs and professions of a majority of non-Baptist Americans ever since the time of ratification of the U.S. Constitution? As a Catholic American theologian, Doctor of Sacred Theology from Rome, and professor with mandates from bishops to teach theology, I can testify that “religious Zionism” as proposed by a growing number of Israelis (even their current government Ministers) is actually contrary to the continuous teaching and doctrines of the Catholic Church.

These teachings are found in Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (9.3) and even testified to by Benedict XVI in a Communio essay from 2018. As a Catholic theologian, I have a religious obligation to testify against “religious Zionism” and the false prophecies of Christian Zionists and televangelists who support forms of Zionism contrary to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (see CCC 676). While I am opposed to antisemitism (as understood prior to 2023) by my religious beliefs, I am bound by traditional religious beliefs to maintain forms of anti-Zionism. Like me, many Israeli citizens also oppose “religious Zionism” and support my opposition to what are known as “religious Zionists” and “Kahanists.” People are free to disagree with me, but Congress is not free to deny or block my First Amendment rights.

While it can be argued (and I do argue) that the migration of European Jews into Palestine under British Mandated Palestine was a secular and legal matter which the British had a right to oversee from WWI to WWII, it cannot be argued legally that since 1948—and international law since WWII—Israel has a right to expand through warfare beyond the originally recognized borders after the British mandate ended. To argue in favor of post-1948 military expansion of the political State of Israel without appeal to religious belief (and lots of American arms shipments) is nearly impossible and so creates a problem for Congress.

Since 1948 to 1967, and still continuing today, Zionist arguments in favor of the right of Jews to currently occupied Palestinian territories can only be argued through (1) justification of brutal, secular neocolonialism and or (2) religious motivations and claims, such as having a mandate from God to take the Land forcibly. You will not find many congressmen or senators in America arguing that the political State of Israel (1) has a right to brutal neocolonialist expansion in the Middle East. However, you will find many senators and congressman arguing alongside Israeli religious Zionists (like Itamar Ben-Gvir) that (2) God said the Land occupied since A.D. 70 by other nations really belongs to the Jews. Such arguments are doctrinally rejected by orthodox Catholics because orthodox Catholics believe the arguments are based on false interpretations of the Law and Prophets and neglect that Jesus is the true fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham.

For Congress to redefine anti-Zionism as antisemitism in 2023 is to enter a religious debate and define Catholicism as a forbidden religion in the United States. Congress is now officially anti-Catholic and has violated the Establishment Clause—even if ignorant Catholics were duped in favor of the resolution and even if bishops have yet to comprehend the situation. I do not speak for the Orthodox Churches or other mainstream Christian communities, but I am pretty sure Congress violated their understanding of the Old and New Testaments as well. Beyond any doubt, Congress violated the religion of all Muslims, most of whom in America are good and patriotic Americans.

With many other good Americans (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish), I join in seeking the peace and security of Israel and the Palestinians in a Two-State Solution as proposed recently by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert along with his Palestinian counterparts. I condemn the U.S. House Resolution 894 approved on December 5, 2023, where it equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. I ask Congress to repeal this specific point and blatant violation of the First Amendment and ensure it does not happen again. It wouldn’t hurt for Mike Johnson to step aside.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]