The Studied Silence of American Catholic Conservatives

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 31, 2025

Those of us who lived through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s understand the gradual breakdown of taboos. Playful rock and roll music (“I want to hold your hand”) devolved over the years into drug-crazed acid rock and even rape lyrics (don’t ask). When we heard the lyrics (always a bit difficult to discern), our first response was denial: the words couldn’t mean what we initially thought they meant. Similarly, most conservative American Catholics refuse to acknowledge our immoral actions during war or those of Israel. At least, not yet.

There are historical reasons to cause American Catholic discomfort. Americans have a history of military excesses, usually justified as perceived necessities: Hiroshima, Dresden, the carpet bombings in Vietnam. General Curtis LeMay famously said, “Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.”

The late Senator Gene McCarthy told me in a private conversation, when I said he was the 1968 Presidential “anti-war candidate,” that he wasn’t “anti-war” and he didn’t condone the Viet Cong. He explained that he opposed the American conduct of the war and the indiscriminate killings. After many decades, whispers among diplomats about American indiscriminate attacks during the Korean War are only now emerging.

We need not apologize for waging just wars. But realism suggests that it may take decades before we realize the grave immorality of our action during our wars. Many decades ago, a Catholic acquaintance told me he was a lead navigator during the Dresden raids and came to realize the immorality of the firebombing many years later—in 1978. He added that during the war not a single Catholic chaplain expressed objections. We shouldn’t be historically present-minded in these matters. But just as Pope John Paul II enumerated historical injustices committed in the name of the Church in 2000, we could do the same. Such is the dynamic of repentance.

Americans, an ocean away, may have seen videos and news accounts, but (with AI) seldom bring absolute certainty to allegations of atrocities committed in the Middle East. The entangled hatreds and threats of mutual genocide fuel the confusion. We are, of course, quick to accept accounts of Arab terrorism (it would be reprehensible to ignore them). But we are reluctant to acknowledge accounts of de facto Israeli terrorism in response. Indeed, to suggest that Israel also commits acts of terrorism causes American Catholic conservatives to bristle.

Most Catholic conservatives feel the tug of silence. As we rightly condemn Hamas terrorism, we cannot quite bring ourselves to criticize Israel. Most vocal Catholic conservatives (similar to the Protestant conservatives of the Babylon Bee) refuse to identify a single substantive Israeli policy to oppose. It is dangerous to one’s career for an American Catholic conservative to disagree with American foreign policy. It is fatal to disagree with Israel’s foreign policy.

Conservatives who object to particular Israeli policies usually follow the script of the mainstream conservative media: studied silence. Years ago, I developed a casual friendship with a TV news anchorman. Our meandering conversations touched on Israel and, with hushed tones even in private, the anchorman acknowledged the excessive influence of the Israeli lobby on America. Although earlier in life, he was a fearless Vietnam War correspondent, he cowered at the thought of opposing any Israeli policy. A Congressman once told me that throughout his years on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, there wasn’t a single piece of legislation that passed without the approval of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby.

Talk of an effective Israeli lobby in the United States undoubtedly makes many American Catholic observers uncomfortable. The dependence of political and think tanks on AIPAC funding is immense. Israel is an ally. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Evidence of carnage in Gaza is pervasive but readily dismissed as collateral damage. All the wrong people support Palestine on our campuses as they chant, “From the river to the sea,” aiming to wipe Israel off the map. We need not suffer any illusions about Hamas’ intentions. But we should not be naïve about Israel’s intentions, either.

After the Israeli response to the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, Israeli authorities repeatedly demanded that there could be “no moral equivalence” in evaluating their response to the attacks. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. William F. Buckley, Jr. once described the minimum wage as either irrelevant or mischievous. If market rates are higher than the minimum wage, it is irrelevant. If the minimum wage exceeds market rates, it is mischievous because it discourages hiring.

Similarly, Israel’s demand for “no moral equivalence” is either irrelevant or mischievous. It is irrelevant if it means Israel has a right to defend itself. She does, and she doesn’t need a slogan to justify a just response. But it is mischievous if Israel uses it to justify overwhelming and indiscriminate violence. Events reveal the latter. Israel meets the killing of innocent civilians with the overwhelming killing of innocent civilians.

The Israeli authorities insist that the attacks on civilians are unfortunate mistakes and express regret. Others don’t accept the official explanation. The “mistakes” are too common. With tens of thousands of civilians—including children (children make up nearly half the population of Gaza)—killed since that infamous October 7 terror attack, the arguments that these casualties are “collateral damage” or that they are caused by Hamas using civilians as human shields, are no longer plausible. Here in America, we would never accept a SWAT team shooting up a Catholic school, killing hundreds of kids, to take out a criminal.

The abundant evidence of the atrocities has become irrefutable. The conservative CatholicVote site has rallied its readership in support of Christians in Gaza. Unfortunately their objection to Israeli indiscriminate attacks is sectarian: rooted in concern for Catholic Palestinians rather than the humanity of the greater Gazan population. But it’s a good start. A handful of prominent Israelis—such as former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (presumably not motivated by anti-Semitism) have condemned Israel’s Gaza starvation policy.

We’re loyal Americans. We’re Catholics first, and we believe the Fifth Commandment applies to everyone—including Hamas and Israel, and America.