“Perhaps it is the will of God that this aeon there should be diversity
in our forms of devotion and commitment to Him. In this aeon
diversity of religious is the will of God.”
-Abraham Joshua Heschel, No Religion Is An Island
As an American Catholic, I must speak to the rise of the alarming increase in anti-Semitism. This message is directed specifically towards those who use their Catholicism to justify hatred of our Jewish brothers and sisters. I also want to highlight as well as those who would have the laws of the United States based upon Catholic doctrine, such as White supremacist, Holocaust denier and Trump dinner guest Nick Fuentes.
Fuentes, is also known for his open disdain for democracy. He is on record stating:
“You know what democracy has given us? Obesity. Low rates of literacy. It’s given us divorce, abortion, gay marriage, liberalism, pornography. That’s what democracy has given us. Ghettos and crime and political correctness. Diversity. Yeah, the track record of democracy? Not so good. Catholic autocracy? Pretty strong. Pretty strong record. Catholic monarchy? Catholic monarchy, and just war, and crusades, and inquisitions? Pretty good stuff.”
To those such as Fuentes, that would weaponize Catholicism into an instrument of divisiveness and hatred, I remind my co-religionists:
THAT Jesus, the Holy Family, and His original followers lived not as Catholics but as Jews. The Holy Family and His Apostles lived as Jews. The works of St. John the Baptist have its origins in the Jewish rite of Mikvah (spiritual purification by immersion in water). Likewise, the original Chalice was a Kiddush Cup, the first Communion bread was matzo being that the Last Supper was undeniably a Passover Seder.
THAT When Jesus was crucified by the Romans – as were thousands of other Jews thought to be a threat to the Empire – the prayer said for Him at His death was Kaddish.
THAT as we have been taught by Nostra Aetate (In Our Time - Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian religions), "what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today."
THAT if Jesus had come of age in 1930s Germany instead of almost 2,000 years earlier in Judea and Galilee, as a Jew His death would have been in a gas chamber or by the Shoah of bullets instead of on the Cross.
THAT these truths can only lead us to a single conclusion: Anti-Semitism is at the very least anti-Catholic but also a sin against humanity, and it a sin against God.
Which brings us to the matter of Catholic integralism (the advocacy for for an authoritarian and an anti-pluralist Catholic government), which is advocated by Nick Fuentes and his movement.
THAT Catholic integralism is not religious freedom but theocracy and religious supremacy. As such, it is a direct threat to American democracy and domestic tranquility.
THAT with regard to other faiths, Nostra Aetate unequivocally states:
"The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings, which though different in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of truth which enlightens all men.”
THAT Judaism, from the faith of Jesus and His earliest followers to the current day, is that “ray of truth which enlightens all men.” Catholic integralism would gravely dim and distort that ray of truth.
THAT integralism recalls an intolerant and strident period of Catholicism’s long history. As such, any call for Catholic theology to replace American secular law smacks of Torquamada and Inquisition, not of the lesson of tolerance and good will taught to us in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
As Roger Williams, theologian then of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations declared in 1636, “Forced Worship Stinks In God's Nostrils.” Whenever government is coopted to be any creed’s enforcer it indicates doubt and weakness. Theocracy and religious authoritarianism as such violates every citizen’s freedom of conscience.
Catholic integralism – and White supremacy, as advocated by Nick Fuentes and others, emits the foulest of odors in the nostrils of our Lord. It is a doctrine of mortal sin that will result in the cruelty, hatred and violence of Inquisitions past. The very concept of integralism clashes with the way of Jesus who never coopted government to evangelize.
Therefore, to the rest of us let all Catholic seekers of truth and goodwill, and all of us who recognize the values of religious freedom, pluralism, and separation of church and state rise as defenders of the faith, the faith of others, and as defenders of democracy. It is our time.
Frank L. Cocozzelli is the author of Commissar Conservatives: How Laissez-faire Libertarianism Is Disturbingly Similar to Communism
Afterword
I wrote this piece because of the danger of a rising anti-Semitism. This concerns me greatly because this hatred presents a grave danger to people that I love and care about. As of late I have been watching documentaries on the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. The faces of the victims of the Holocaust bear resemblances to those of my friends, colleagues and teachers – people who have taught me well along my journey through life. Although their creed is different than mine I will not stand by and let other Catholics impose my faith upon others. In all people of goodwill, regardless of what they believe or do not believe I see the presence of God.
Perhaps Abraham Joshua Heschel best described my outlook:
“When engaged in a conversation with a person of different religious commitment I discover that we disagree in matters sacred to us, does the image of God I face disappear? Does God sees to stand before me? Does the difference in commitment destroy the kinship of being human? Does the fact that we differ and our conceptions of God cancel what we have in common: the image of God?”
For me, the image God does not disappear.