Recently I became peripherally aware of a controversy in politically conservative media involving commentators Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens. My understanding (and please forgive me, I try to keep my knowledge of political punditry to a bare minimum) is that their feud centers around antisemitism, Israel, and the phrase “Christ is King.” Owens, who was previously associated with conservative media company The Daily Wire, expressed critical views on Israel when discussing the war in Gaza. Shapiro, who is Jewish and pro-Israel, called her behavior “disgraceful.” Owens’s departure from The Daily Wire highlighted deeper rifts within the conservative movement, exposing tensions over divergent views of Judaism and the state of Israel.

One unfortunate aspect of the debate was a clash over the phrase “Christ is King,” which Owens posted on X during the kerfuffle. According to the Jerusalem Post, this “appeared to some as an antisemitic dog-whistle.”

It is certainly true that “Christ the King” is an image with a deep theological significance for Catholics. It has been officially celebrated every year in the Church since Pope Pius XI established the Feast of Christ the King in 1925. In the establishment of the feast, Pius made clear that “This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things,” and reminded us that Christ “declared that his kingdom was not of this world.” Pius also made clear that Christ’s kingdom “demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice, and more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross.” (Quas Primas 15).

In November 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Asti, his ancestral home, to celebrate Mass for the feast of Christ the King, and in his homily, he painted a portrait of the Kingship of Christ: “he embraces our death, our pain, our poverty, our weakness. He embraced all of it. … He let himself be insulted and derided, so that whenever we are brought low, we will never feel alone. He let himself be stripped of his garments, so that no one would ever feel stripped of his or her rightful dignity. He ascended the cross, so that God would be present in every crucified man or woman throughout history. This is our king, the king of the universe.”

But what could be wrong with proclaiming “Christ is King”? Sadly the term has been abused by groups who manifest hate and lies rather than love or faith. As Michael Brown, writing for the Christian Post explained, “this beautiful, biblically based truth has been hijacked by elements of the extreme religious right.” Brown goes on to describe the way “Christ is King” has become a popular chant with antisemitic activist Nick Fuentes and his “groyper” movement. In a traditionalist Catholic context, this mantra often corresponds with great evils: the promotion of anti-Jewish tropes and conspiracy theories, white nationalism, and political views that reject the human dignity and religious liberty of Jewish people.

Origins of “Christ the King” as an antisemitic trope

My first thought when I heard about the invocation of “Christ is King” in the recent Owens/Shapiro spat went back much further than recent political disputes. I was reminded of Fr. Denis Fahey, CSSp (1883–1954), an Irish priest best remembered today for his widely-disseminated antisemitic writings and his influence over activists on the reactionary fringes of Church and society, including American “radio priest” Charles Coughlin. Fahey, a member of the Holy Ghost Fathers (also known as the Spiritans), was influenced in his views by Irish Jesuit Edward Cahill, who founded a group called “An Ríoghacht,” the League of the Kingship of Christ. The focus of this group was to oppose freemasonry and communism while advocating for social reforms, particularly an overhaul of the banking system, which they believed was controlled by Jews and Masons.

Fahey wrote numerous books, most of which are now in the public domain, and many of them have titles with references to “Christ the King” or “The Kingship of Christ.” Fahey’s mindset was both apocalyptic and dualistic — he saw eschatological signs in world events, and everything fit into a cosmic battle between good and evil. University of Edinburgh historian Edna Delaney describes how Fahey saw his work as defending the Catholic Church against “the organized forces of naturalism,” which come in two distinct forms — an invisible force, “that of Satan and ‘his fellow demons,’” and “visible forces … the Jews and the Freemasons.” Delaney explains that in Fahey’s eyes, “The two later groupings were parts of a movement of organized naturalism in direct confrontation with the supernatural life of Christ.”[1]

In one of his later works, The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation (1953), Fahey portrays Jews as actively engaged in a conspiracy to undermine Christianity, while ushering in naturalism with its own anti-supernatural “Messias” or Messiah — the antichrist.

In this book, Fahey employs a bit of semantic wordplay to reject the label of “Anti-Semitism” that contemporary antisemites still use today. Fahey points out that the term should not be defined as opposition to Jews or Judaism because Anti-Semitism has its origins as a racial theory (such as that embraced by the Nazi party). He writes that Satan “spreads perplexity and disorder in minds by introducing confusion between Anti-Semitism, which is the detestable hatred of the Jews as a race, and the duty incumbent upon Catholics of combating valiantly for the integral rights of Christ the King and opposing Jewish Naturalism.” In other words, he argues that combating and opposing Jews is only acceptable if done for the right reasons. This approach reflects the talking points of many Catholic extremists today who deny that they are antisemites.

Such linguistic sleight-of-hand is why since 2015, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) pushed for a change in the standard spelling of the term from “anti-Semitism” to “antisemitism.” The IHRA stated, “the hyphenated spelling allows for the possibility of something called ‘Semitism,’ which not only legitimizes a form of pseudo-scientific racial classification that was thoroughly discredited by association with Nazi ideology, but also divides the term, stripping it from its meaning of opposition and hatred toward Jews.” Since then, major style guides have followed suit. This change reinforces the fact that the term simply means opposition, antipathy, or hatred for Jews, without specific historical baggage and racial connotations.

Also in Kingship, Fahey decries not only the idea of states protecting freedom of worship for Jews, but he even opposes granting them full citizenship, writing, “By granting full citizenship to members of the Jewish religion, the State, to all intents and purposes, gives free rein to the naturalistic moulding process pursued by the Jewish nation, in view of the elimination of membership of Christ and the inauguration of the new Messianic era.” He sees Jews as already citizens of the “Jewish state” and thinks granting them citizenship elsewhere would give them dual citizenship. (This is ironically similar to the split-loyalties rhetoric hurled at John F. Kennedy by anti-Catholic Southern Protestants during the 1960 election.)

Fahey spends the final portion of the book speculating on the future Antichrist, and he foresees Jews playing a major role in his coming. He writes, “The Jews will acclaim Antichrist as the Messias and will help to set up his kingdom” (p. 184). He continues, quoting from Abbe Augustin Lemann, the “Antichrist will be a member of the Jewish race and even of the tribe of Dan.” He continues with speculation about Jewish involvement in the rise of the Antichrist and even the rebuilding of the temple as the abomination of desolation.

Fahey’s Jesuit ally, Fr. Cahill, would eventually be reined in by his Jesuit superiors. Fahey, however, was often aided by a member of the hierarchy with largely sympathetic views — his fellow Spiritan, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin. It seems his primary inconvenience was occasionally having difficulties convincing a bishop to grant imprimaturs to his books.[2] In the years after Cahill’s death in 1941, Fahey founded his own activist group, Maria Duce (“under the leadership of Mary”), which disseminated his ideas through books and pamphlets, letters to newspapers, and petitions. Fr. Fahey died in 1954.

Kennedy Hall and the Spirit of Fahey today

Just days before Easter, Crisis Magazine published an article in response to the aforementioned Owens/Shapiro spat. It was written by contributing editor Kennedy Hall, an SSPX-affiliated Canadian author whose books have garnered hundreds of Amazon reviews and who has more than 45,000 YouTube subscribers. His article — entitled “Good Friday ‘Antisemitism’ and the Conversion of the Jews” — makes a number of assertions that oppose the teachings of the Magisterium on Judaism, including some that are shockingly antisemitic.

Early in the article, Hall states that “the historically Catholic perspective toward Judaism is the long-standing belief that the Jews as a race have inherited some sort of guilt for the Crucifixion of Christ. Now, even just mentioning that a race of people could be guilty for the sin or sins of an ancestor or a group of ancestors is anathema in our culture of individualism, but it is not foreign to sound Catholic thinking.”

Before analyzing this claim in light of the Magisterium, note that Hall refers to “the Jews as a race” and “a race of people.” This may just be sloppy writing by Hall, but it is concerning that he twice suggests that the Jewish people are “a race” that bears collective guilt for the death of Jesus, considering that even Fr. Fahey rejected the notion of the Jews as a racial group. Later in the article, Hall adds that “it is also clear from Christ Himself that Jews bore a special responsibility in the matter of the Crucifixion.”

Despite what Hall claims regarding “the historically Catholic perspective toward Judaism,” the clearest and most authoritative Church statement on the notion of Jews bearing collective guilt is a repudiation of the idea: “What happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures” (Nostra Aetate, 4).

Indeed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church asserts that it is Christians who bear most of the guilt for the crucifixion: “The Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone: We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins … It can be seen that our crime in this case is greater in us than in the Jews. As for them, according to the witness of the Apostle, ‘None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.’ We, however, profess to know him. and when we deny him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on him.” (CCC 598).

Early in the article, Hall casually shares a quote from Fr. Fahey:

Fr. Denis Fahey wrote in 1943 in The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism:

By leaving Our Lord Jesus Christ out of account and passing over in silence the rights of the head of the Mystical Body, they committed apostasy and ushered in a long period of disorder… When men reject our Lord Jesus Christ, they tend inevitably to put themselves in the place of God. (p. 107)

The context of this quote is Fahey’s condemnation of the French government since the Revolution (like many other European governments of the era) to allow “organized naturalism” to reign supreme. Immediately prior to this passage, Fahey notes two outliers — Ireland and Poland — whose constitutions gave pride of place to the Catholic faith, but he decried that the governments of both countries had established religious freedom in the 1930s. The root of Fahey’s concern is grounded in his antisemitism. He posits that this “domination of State after State by the naturalistic supranationalism of Freemasonry” is leading to a “gradually and steadily emerging the still more strongly organized naturalistic supranationalism of the Jewish Nation.” This statement is all the more horrifying when we consider that Fahey published this book in 1943, when at the same time the Jews of Nazi-occupied Poland had been stripped of all rights and were being rounded up and murdered.

Hall keeps going, writing: “I can recognize—as I must because Our Lord said it—that the Jewish nation would inherit some sort of culpability from its apostasy and Deicide,” and “any watering down of the truth of the Gospel and the nature of inherited guilt or historical guilt will only hamper our collective efforts in praying and sacrificing for their conversion.”

Hall ends his article with an “eloquent” quote from Fahey, ostensibly to demonstrate his deep love for Jews: “We must never forget that or allow ourselves to fall victim to an attitude of hatred for the Jews as a nation. We must always bear in mind that He is seeking to draw them on to that supernatural union with Himself which they reject.”

Hall stops his quotation of Fahey just in time, because just two pages later a passage from the Rome-based Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica is quoted:

“If the Jews are not rendered harmless by means of special laws depriving them of that civil equality to which they have no right, nothing useful or lasting will be accomplished. In view of their presence in different countries and their unchangeable character of foreigners in every nation, of enemies of the people in every country that supports them, and of a society segregated from the societies amongst which they live ; in view of the Talmudic moral code which they follow and the fundamental dogma of their religion which spurs them on to get hold of the possessions of all peoples by any means in their power, as, according to it, they are entitled to rule the world.”[3]

It should be noted that in the 19^th and first half of the 20^th century, La Civiltà Cattolica was notoriously antisemitic. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hanna Arendt says that it was “for decades the most outspokenly antisemitic and one of the most influential Catholic magazines in the world. It carried anti-Jewish propaganda long before Italy went Fascist, and its policy was not affected by the anti-Christian attitude of the Nazis.”[4] After Vatican II, La Civiltà Cattolica shifted its tone and content regarding Jews and Judaism, aligning with the position of the Church, promoting dialogue, respect, and understanding.

Antisemitic Catholicism on the Rise

Unfortunately, Kennedy Hall is not the only well-known Catholic contemporary public figure to send antisemitic signals to his audience. Here are a handful of additional examples:

Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s Credo catechism

This book, Credo, which I have critiqued before (and which, frankly, deserves to be condemned by Church authority) plays into many antisemitic tropes in contradiction with the Magisterium. For example, it claims, “contemporary Judaism, also called Talmudic or Rabbinic Judaism — without temple, priesthood, or sacrifice — is not the same religion that God established in the Old Testament. Rejecting the true Messiah, the Old Law has thus become ‘both dead and deadly’” (no. 205). The next paragraph takes this antisemitic idea — that Jews today hold to a different religion than biblical Judaism — even further, asserting, “contemporary Judaism as a whole exists as a rejection of God’s calling, since there can be no fidelity to the Old Covenant where its fulfillment in the New is denied.”

These passages entirely contradict the official teachings of the Church, such as those articulated in no. 839 of the Catechism: “The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ’, ‘for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.’”

LifeSiteNews platforms Fahey

In an article published April 15, entitled “Everything you need to know about Catholic teaching on the Antichrist,” Paul Cahill sketches a vision of the future antichrist, drawing liberally from Fr. Fahey’s The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation and other sources that lean heavily on the Jewishness of the predicted figure. Among the quotes taken from Fahey’s book is this from Abbe Lehmann, “Down the centuries, the Jews have welcomed all the enemies of Jesus Christ and His Church and have constituted themselves as their auxiliaries.”

Denial of Citizenship to Jews

By now it’s become clear that old habits, including those of Fr. Denis Fahey, die hard. This is the case in Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy by Fr. Thomas Crean, an English Dominican, and Alan Fimister of St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Colorado. Their book paints a vision of an ideal Catholic society. And as reported by Timothy Troutner in Commonweal, this vision includes many social horrors, including the denial of citizenship for Jews and other non-Catholics:

The most disturbing aspect of the story Integralism tells involves the fate of those who are essentially written out of its narrative: non-Catholics, women, and all those who don’t fit the patriarchal family model. Crean and Fimister openly state that Jews, atheists, and all non-Catholics will be denied citizenship and voting rights. They will be forbidden to proselytize, while polytheistic religions will be banned (along with, the manual insinuates, Islam). Protestant ministers will not be tolerated, and heretics can be put to death. Women, unless they are heads of households, will not be allowed to vote and may work outside the home only with the permission of their husbands, by whom they are governed and to whom they must offer sex whenever requested. Sexual minorities fare no better. Cohabiting couples and those born out of wedlock can be disenfranchised, and a footnote implies (with a reference to an obscure Latin text) that the execution of some LGBTQ people may promote the salvation of souls. It should not be totally surprising, then, that the manual also insists that permanent and even hereditary slavery can be “a potentially valid legal relationship” in certain circumstances.

Pre-1955 Holy Week

Those who follow the traditionalist movement have noticed that with every passing year, cries demanding the celebration of the liturgy according to the “pre-1955 Holy Week” have been made. Even though the dictates of Summorum Pontificum and Traditionis Custodes say that the older form of the Mass must be celebrated according to the 1962 Missal, traditionalists have sought permission to use earlier editions during Holy Week.

In addition to their apparent antiquarianism, there is another, more sinister motive behind these pleas — the desire to use a prayer on Good Friday that has been abolished from the 1962 Missal because it is offensive to Jews. In 2008, Pope Benedict modified the prayer to simplify it and remove language such as “the blindness of that people; that … they may be delivered from their darkness.” In 1958, Pope St. John XXIII removed the adjective “pérfidis” (faithless) from the term Jews. One of the “perks” of the pre-1955 Holy Week is their “restoration” to their full potential to offend.

Conclusion

When voices are raised about problems within the traditionalist movement, the Latin Mass is not at all the most urgent concerns. There are countless more examples of antisemitism and other forms of extremism within the movement. And rarely do you see any of them bat an eye in the face of it. Traditionalists have also shown repeatedly that they are incapable of addressing these problems on their own, and in many cases are resistant to bringing their views into alignment with the Church. Why is it that outsiders are left to point out these problems within the traditionalist community? Where are their moral leaders who think with the mind of the Church? As far as I can tell, they don’t have any.

Notes:

[1] Delaney, E 2001, ‘Political Catholicism in post-war Ireland: The Revd Denis Fahey and Maria Duce, 194554’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 487-511. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046901004213

[2] For example, Delaney notes that McQuaid refused to give Fahey an imprimatur for The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation, saying “the book was eventually published with the imprimatur of the bishop of Ferns, James Staunton, although it is unclear from the available evidence whether he actually gave it his approval. Fahey’s confreres have recounted how Staunton was reprimanded for this action by Archbishop McQuaid who stated in no uncertain terms that he did not want the book sold in the archdiocese of Dublin.” (Delaney pp. 496-497.)

[3] Denis Fahey, The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism (Dublin: Regina Publications, 1938), 133.

[4] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1951), 133.

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Image: Jewish Wedding at Waterford Courthouse 1901. Public Domain.