The Popes Make Most Catholics Antisemitic

On October 7th, 2025 the new Pope Leo XIV (who had only held office for 5 months at that point) approached a group of reporters and made a short prepared statement on the second anniversary of the October 7th 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. He said that Hamas had killed over 200 Israelis on October 7th when in reality it was over 1,200 Israelis murdered, and then he went on to quote the Hamas Ministry of Health statistics on casualties for civilians in Gaza, claiming 67,000 civilian deaths, instead of the IDF casualty statistics for targeted combatants that totalled 53,000 in May 2025 where all were enemy combatants and leaked IDF data shows that 8,900 were targeted, named militants on their most wanted list. The Vatican put out corrections and walked the 200 number back within hours, and some news sources did change what he said to 1,200 Israelis killed, but any one of the 1.3 billion Catholics on Earth that heard him live heard him say 200 Israelis were killed, and then claimed that 67,000 Gazan civilians had been killed, implying an imbalance and an injustice in warfare.

It is entirely possible that the Pope was just confused and was mixing up the 1,200 Jewish Israelis murdered by Radical Islamist terrorist Muslims in Gaza on October 7th 2023 with the 200 Christian Nigerians killed by Radical Islamist terrorist Muslims on Father's Day in 2025, so we should really give him a pass because it is very hard to keep all of the Radical Muslim terrorist acts straight. In just the last 2 years Radical Islamists have murdered Jewish people (1,200+ on Oct 7 alone), Alawites (hundreds in Syrian massacres since 2025), Druze (600+ in Sweida by July 2025), and Christians (500+ in Nigeria/Syria), and all of them just for not being Muslim.

So if Pope Leo's misstatement of 1,200 as 200 was just a gaffe, just a mistake, and it didn't represent a pattern of behavior then that would be one thing, but when Pew interviewed Catholics, Evangelicals, and Mainstream Protestants in the United States in 2024 they found that while “Mainstream Protestants” were evenly split at 51% that thought Israel was going too far in response to October 7th, only 24% of Evangelicals thought that Israel was overreacting, and here's the kicker, 58% of all Catholics thought that Israel was overreacting, so Catholics have been told for two straight years by both Pope Francis and Pope Leo that there is some kind of humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza, and that there was some sort of injustice in war, and all they ever did for two straight years was call for a ceasefire just like Biden and the UN.

It's ironic that the Pope doesn't support Israel. Why? Because Israel has Jewish people in it, and Jesus was Jewish and the first Pope upon which Jesus founded his church (Peter) was Jewish, so it just seems strange that the current Pope and the previous Pope would both support Hamas terrorists instead of Israel. What's the problem with that? In late 2023 after Jewish students on college campuses were being intimidated by protests raging in support of Hamas, and people were holding up signs saying “From the River to the Sea” and “Stop the Genocide” and chanting it, the Jewish students felt unsafe and Congress convened hearings about the matter. First, the House agreed upon a Resolution that 3/4 of the representatives voted for, almost all Republicans and the slight majority of Democrats voted that being anti-Israeli or more specifically that being anti-Zionist is being anti-Semitic. Originally a Zionist meant somebody that wanted Israel to have a country in the first place. So Zionist was a term used before the foundation of Israel, after the foundation of Israel Zionist is used as a pejorative by Muslims to indicate somebody that supports Israel.

Strange bedfellows… 58% of Catholics, BLM whose 2016 platform called Israel “apartheid” and whose chapters celebrated the Oct 7th Hamas attacks, the original NOI where Farrakhan not only praised Hamas but is also on record as saying: “Jews are termites,” the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, and Democrat Arab Muslims like Tlaib all oppose Israel, making them all antisemitic according to the Resolution of Congress. And you know who else refused to vote for that Congressional resolution? Nineteen out of the twenty-two Democrat Jewish representatives, that’s right, only 3 Jewish Democrats joined all 3 Jewish Republicans in voting to protect Jewish students, with 19 Jewish Democrats refusing to. Since almost all Republicans, half of all Democrats, and ¾ of the House voted for the Resolution why did ¾ of the Jewish members of Congress refuse to vote for it? Strange bedfellows indeed, Anti-Israeli anti-Semitism coming from whites, blacks, Arabs, and American Jewish Democrats. To be clear, most Jewish elected officials in the United States are antisemitic according to the non-binding Congressional Resolution.

Later in 2023 the presidents of four East Coast universities were brought in and none of them would draw the line and say where they would stop free speech on college campuses, and none of them, not even the president that was Jewish would say that they would stop protesters from holding up the signs about River to the Sea or Stop the Genocide. Three of the four resigned or were somehow forced out within the next few months except for the one president that was Jewish who answered as best as she could to Congress and expressed appropriate concern for the Jewish students on her campus.

Here in Dearborn Michigan Mayor Hammoud verbally attacked a Christian pastor in a city council meeting the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, calling the resident of Dearborn named Barham, “a racist, a bigot and an Islamophobe,” referencing YouTube videos, and telling him that he wasn't welcome in Dearborn and that he would throw a parade to celebrate when he moves out. Both Charlie Kirk and Barham were/are just Christians that sometimes self-identify as conservatives in the United States because they support traditional family values, but that doesn't mean any Christian supports hate or spreads hate. The Detroit Free Press fact-checked Mayor Hammoud and said there was no hatred, bigotry or Islamophobia in any of Barham’s videos on YouTube. So our mayor lied and this was all about a sign posted about a publisher of the Arab American News who supports Hezbollah and Hamas calling them freedom fighters and refusing to acknowledge them as terrorists.

In the ensuing weeks on Facebook message boards people claiming to be Catholic said that they had no problem with what Hammoud said about the Christian pastor Barham even if it was a lie, which made me wonder about what makes Catholics anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli and antisemitic, and the answer turns out to be the Pope, and it doesn't matter which one, all Popes are apparently antisemitic. Who knew? And really, who knew that 19 out of the 25 elected Jewish representatives voted against a resolution saying that being anti-Zionist is being antisemitic? Why did 86% of Democrat Jewish Representatives (19 out of 22) and 58% of American Catholics side with Radical Islamist terrorists and not with Israel? And why is the only clear majority Christian support for Israel among the US Evangelical Christians?

Citations

Catholic News Agency (2025, Oct 7). Pope Leo XIV recalls Palestinians killed since Oct. 7 Hamas attack  

CUATower (2025, Oct 30). The Popes’ Comments on the Israel-Hamas War  

Pew Research Center (2025, Apr 8). US views of Israel and Israel-Hamas war early in Trump's second term  

IDF Spokesperson (2025, Aug). Combatant casualty update – leaked internal database  

+972 Magazine (2025, Aug). Leaked IDF data shows 8,900 named militants out of 53,000 total  

IDF Response (2025, Aug). Rejection of civilian casualty claims from leaked data  

Henry Jackson Society (2025). Hamas human shield infrastructure report  

Honest Reporting (2025). Hamas MoH casualty audit – 3,400 names dropped  

Lancet (2025). Indirect death estimates in Gaza conflict  

Costs of War Project (2025). Gaza violent death toll revision  

Ex-IDF Chief Halevi (2025, Sep). “200k+ killed/injured total” statement  

Pew Research Center (2024, Mar 21). Views of the Israel-Hamas war  

Chicago Council on Global Affairs (2024). American Evangelicals' Support for Israel  

Religion News Service (2024, Jun 3). New study measures sentiment toward Israel among US religious audiences  

USA Today (2024, Jun 11). Survey: Christians favor Israel over Palestinians  

H.Res.894 (2023, Dec 5). Congressional resolution on anti-Zionism as antisemitism  

The New York Times (2023, Dec 5). House Declares Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism  

Jewish Insider (2023, Dec 5). Jewish Democrats abstain on anti-Zionism resolution  

NPR (2023, Dec 5). Lawmakers grill university presidents on antisemitism  

AP News (2023, Dec 12). University presidents testify on campus antisemitism  

Detroit Free Press (2025, Sep 26). Fact-check: No hate in Barham’s videos  

Fox News (2025, Sep 17). Dearborn mayor vs. Christian pastor clash  

The Midwesterner (2025, Sep 16). Dearborn Muslim mayor: “You are not welcome here”  

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (2025). Druze/Alawite massacres in Sweida and coastal Syria  

Open Doors (2025). Nigeria: 200 Christians killed on Father’s Day 2025  

Pew Research Center (2024). Religious groups and Israel-Hamas war views  

ADL (2025). Global antisemitism surge post-October 7  

Vatican Press Office 

(2025). Francis and Leo ceasefire statements archive  

Congress.gov (2023). H.Res.894 vote tally and text  

BLM National (2016). Platform on Israel-Palestine  

NOI Official Statements (2023-2025). Farrakhan on Hamas and Israel  

Detroit Free Press (2025). Hammoud-Barham council incident coverage  

Facebook Community Posts (2025). Catholic reactions to Dearborn incident  

Pew Research Center (2024). Denominational splits on Israel’s response

Details on Pope Francis's statements