A Catholic Call to Abolish Antisemitism

Simone Rizkallah, PhilosCatholic: Mary,  just two weeks after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, you delivered the keynote address at a conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville titled “Nostra Aetate and the Future of Catholic-Jewish Relations at a Time of Rising Antisemitism.” That same week, you published an article in the National Catholic Register titled “Catholics Against Antisemitism: Now More Than Ever.”

You pointed to Nostra Aetate, promulgated in 1965: the Church’s official rejection of collective Jewish guilt; and to the personal efforts of Pope John Paul II and others to strengthen Catholic-Jewish relations.

How has your understanding of antisemitism evolved since then?

Mary Eberstadt: My understanding of antisemitism has not evolved. As noted in my keynote at that historic conference, “anti-Semitism is a unique evil. It has nothing to do with individual Jewish people. No, it can insinuate itself, and does, into souls with peculiar, invisible cracks of some kind. These souls needn’t ever have encountered actual Jews.” What has evolved is an understanding of just how crucial it is to speak to Catholics right now, especially young Catholics, about what their Catholicism means when it comes to our “elder brothers in faith,” as St. John Paul II put it: the Jews.