Archbishop Sample urges Catholics to ‘reject conspiracies and lies’ that lead to antisemitism

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released a video ahead of Easter decrying antisemitism and calling on Catholics to “speak out clearly” against it.

“The Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone,” Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, said in a March 18 video message posted by the USCCB.

“The Jewish community is attacked at a far higher rate than any other religious group in the United States,” he said. “If we Catholics, in truly living out the Gospel, are to defend religious freedom with integrity, we must clearly speak out against antisemitism.”

The USCCB’s message comes less than 20 days before the Easter Triduum, during which Catholics “celebrate the central events of our faith,” Sample said. However, the archbishop said, “sadly, the celebration of Easter has at times been the occasion for outbursts of hatred and even violence against Jews.”

“The guilt for the suffering of Jesus is especially great in us because we who profess to know Christ deny him with our sins,” he said, citing the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which rejects the claim, known as the myth of deicide, that the Jewish people bear the guilt for the death of Jesus, as well as the Second Vatican Council document Nostra Aetate.

“Indeed, Good Friday ought to be an occasion for us to return to the Lord, not to scapegoat others,” he said, describing the myth of deicide as “a profound misunderstanding of what took place on Good Friday” and a significant source of historic and modern antisemitism.

“As Catholics, we are called to walk in the truth, and so to reject the conspiracies and lies that lead to harassment and even violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters,” Sample said.

Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in America, welcomed Sample’s remarks, telling EWTN News: “The statement by Archbishop Sample on behalf of the USCCB could not come at a more important time with bad actors weaponizing Catholicism to spread antisemitic views.”

“We are grateful for the leadership of the Church itself stating unequivocally that the Church rejects those assertions and repudiates antisemitism,” he said.

The Church’s views on antisemitism recently became the center of controversy when media personality Carrie Prejean Boller was removed from the White House-sponsored Religious Liberty Commission last month for remarks she made during a hearing focused on antisemitism.

The former Miss California repeatedly stated during the hearing that her Catholic faith prevented her from embracing Zionism, despite Catholic teaching that does not oppose Israel as a nation or the Jewish people. Boller also repeatedly pressed Jewish panelists on whether her views made her an antisemite.

Catholic teaching does not explicitly oppose Zionism, the movement supporting Jewish self‑determination in a homeland in Israel. Israel is seen as God’s chosen people through whom God revealed himself and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church universally condemns antisemitism. The Church recognizes Israel’s fundamental right to exist.