See the video Carrie Prejean Boller and 'Catholics for Catholics' Do Not Speak for Catholics on Zionism for an expanded version of this article.
On February 9, Carrie Prejean Boller—a recent Catholic convert and member of President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission—declared at a hearing on antisemitism that "Catholics do not embrace Zionism." Two days later she was removed from the Commission. Her remarks prompted a statement from Catholics for Catholics purporting to explain "the Catholic view on Zionism and the 1948 State of Israel."
CfC insists that Catholics must reject any "theological claim" that the modern State of Israel bears covenantal significance. The issue is framed starkly: either one affirms Jesus as the sole path to salvation and the Church as the "new Israel," or one falls into "Zionist" error.
But this framing presents a false dilemma.
No serious Catholic Zionist denies that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. Nor does any orthodox Catholic treat the modern State of Israel as a messianic kingdom. The real question is more precise—and more theological: Has God's covenant with the Jewish people been dissolved in such a way that their vocation in history is now void?
St. Paul's answer is unambiguous: "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29).
Throughout the Bible—some 177 times—the Lord declares his love for Zion. "The Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation: 'This is my resting place for ever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it'" (Ps 132:13–14). God repeatedly promises to give the land of Canaan to Israel and to restore them after exile (Jer 30:3; Ezek 36–37). These promises are not marginal; they are woven into the covenant itself.
It is sometimes argued that such promises were fully realized either in the return from Babylon or in Christ and the Church. Yet large portions of the prophetic vision remain unfulfilled. Isaiah foresees a day when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation" (Isa 2:4) and when the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea (Isa 11:9). However these texts are interpreted, they plainly extend beyond anything yet realized in history. Catholic exegesis recognizes not only a christological fulfillment but also literal and eschatological dimensions of prophetic texts (CCC 115–118). The coming of Christ does not require that every historical promise to Israel be dissolved into spiritual allegory.
The New Testament deepens and universalizes Israel's vocation, but it does not revoke it. Hebrews speaks of a heavenly Zion (Heb 12:22), yet expansion is not cancellation. Jesus insists he has not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets (Matt 5:17). When the apostles ask, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6), he does not correct their expectation of restoration; he redirects their concern to its timing.
For centuries, many Christians assumed that the Church had simply replaced Israel in such a way that the original promises were spiritualized beyond recognition. The expression "new Israel," though common in later theology, does not appear in Scripture. St. Paul's own image is not one of replacement but of grafting. Gentile believers are wild branches inserted into Israel's cultivated olive tree (Rom 11:17–18). "It is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you." The Church participates in Israel's calling; she does not displace it or erase it.
This supersessionist instinct was widespread, but it never became dogma. At the Second Vatican Council, the Church decisively reaffirmed Paul's teaching. In Nostra Aetate §4, the Council declared that God "does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues," explicitly citing Romans 11. The Jewish people remain "most dear to God" for the sake of the patriarchs.
This affirmation has doctrinal consequences. If God's covenant with Israel were effectively revoked, the covenant itself would become unstable. The reliability of God's promises—to Israel or to the Church—would be called into question. Paul's entire argument in Romans 9–11 is that Israel's ongoing existence in history manifests divine fidelity, not divine abandonment.
CfC warns that "Zionism" is a non-Catholic term. Yet "Zion" is emphatically biblical. To speak of Zion is to speak the language of Scripture. Catholics are free to debate modern political Zionism as a prudential matter. They are not free to treat the biblical promises to Israel as theological relics emptied of historical meaning.
None of this requires uncritical endorsement of every policy of the modern State of Israel. The State is secular and subject to moral evaluation like every other nation. But to insist that the Jewish people's return to their ancestral land can bear no theological significance whatsoever goes beyond prudence. It risks collapsing Scripture into a purely spiritualized reading in which the concrete promises to Israel are treated as expendable once the Church appears.
Paul speaks of a "mystery" concerning Israel's future (Rom 11:25–26). He does not describe a discarded people, but a beloved one whose history remains intertwined with the Church's own. The endurance of the Jewish people—and their continued self-understanding as a covenant people—cannot be theologically irrelevant without doing violence to the Apostle's argument.
The present controversy, then, is not about choosing between Jesus and Israel. It is about whether Catholics will remain faithful to the full scriptural and conciliar witness concerning God's irrevocable covenant.
Before declaring what "Catholics do not embrace," we would do well to heed Paul's warning: "Do not boast over the branches" (Rom 11:18). The mystery of Israel is not a problem to be solved but a reality before which Christians are commanded to stand in awe. The God who called Israel is the same God who has grafted the nations into her tree—and His promises do not fail.
