Part II: The Questions We Asked Israel—and Ourselves

By Peter Wolfgang ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 24, 2026

What might the officials from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs be expecting from their Catholic guests in our first conversation with them on the first night of our visit to their country? Probably not an analogizing of Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Catholic Church’s clergy sex-abuse crisis. But that is how the week began.

The trip was arranged through the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism (CCAA), which was not offered, nor received, any compensation for making it happen. Though I am on its advisory board, the CCAA is more a statement than an organization. It is housed within the Institute on Religion and Democracy, which also did not receive any funding from any source for the trip. It was done on a volunteer basis by Simone Rizkallah, the CCAA’s head.

There were about a dozen of us, Americans chosen for the trip because we are pro-Israel Catholics. But pro-Israel Catholics are not the same breed as pro-Israel Evangelicals. None of us subscribe to any form of Protestant Zionism. Beyond that, we are all over the map. Some of us support Israel on purely secular grounds while others are open to Gavin D’Costa’s “minimalist Catholic Zionism.” Some of us are fully supportive of Israel’s actions since October 7th, some of us far less so.

As I noted in Part I, my previous work on this topic is what brought me to this moment. I’m neither an Israel First guy nor a Blame Israel First guy. I may be the only person our hosts ever heard describe himself as both pro-Israel and pro-J.D. Vance, a combination that doesn’t usually go together. They seemed dumbfounded. They were even more surprised by the member of our party who likened the Gaza War to clergy sex-abuse. The Church has apologized for its faults, he said. Can’t Israel do the same?

On the second day, we had lunch with officials from the Anti-Defamation League’s Israel chapter. They had suggestions for how we could help them fight antisemitism from within the Catholic community. We had some suggestions for them, too. “The ADL’s feet are firmly planted on the political left,” I told them. “It hurts your core mission.” The ADL’s managing director disputed my description of the group’s politics. My wife, Leslie, then pulled out her phone and recited aloud the ADL’s record of support for the transitioning of minors.

The ADL’s response was twofold, saying it had pulled back from pro-trans advocacy while still defending it as necessary. Leslie questioned her on both points, citing recent ADL court filings in favor of gender transitions for minors, and noting the difficulty of helping the ADL fight antisemitism while the ADL is pursuing an agenda that sees Catholics as haters, and equivalent to antisemites, for opposing biological boys playing on girls’ sports and gender transitions for children.

This antisemitism paradox came up repeatedly during the trip. It was not a question of fighting antisemitism but, rather, what else comes bundled with the fight against it. And not just for Catholics. Most U.S. Jews, for instance, vote for the Democrats, the party far more hostile to Israel. Do they love abortion, or hate Trump, more than they love Israel? Shouldn’t the work begin there, peeling U.S. Jews off the political left, rather than putting the onus on the rest of us to defend Israel when the Jews themselves seem not to?

These questions were put directly to our hosts. We were told that the American Jewish community does support Israel, with donations. The more persuasive answer came from Catherine Szkop, an American staffer at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC who was with us throughout our trip. “American Jews are afraid right now,” she told us. “They need others to advocate for them.” Catherine knew whereof she spoke, being a survivor of the attack that left two of her colleagues dead in Washington last year.

Our group had tough questions for our hosts. But we had tough questions for ourselves too. Why the uptick in antisemitism among young Catholics? In recent decades conservative Catholics had built an ecosystem of alternatives to mainstream Church institutions that seemed more committed to attacking the faith than passing it on. A few of our fellow pilgrims worked in Newman Guide Colleges, for instance. My own children grew up in the Catholic homeschooling networks that are feeders for those colleges, which they also attended.

I found myself thinking of the history curriculum. It emphasized Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe and the first half of American history. There was very little 20th century history—in fact, almost nothing after the Civil War. I thought of a young Catholic podcaster I listen to, strongly anti-Israel, who grew up on the same curriculum. Did something go wrong with the conservative Catholic ecosystem? Was there something in those gaps that left young Catholics more prone to conspiracy theories, more willing to believe that Israel, or “the Jews,” are behind every bad thing?