NEW YORK – A hearing of the U.S. Religious Liberty Commission on February 9, 2025, ostensibly convened to address the rising tide of antisemitism, was derailed by activist Carrie Prejean Boller, who used the platform to launch a series of false and misleading attacks on the State of Israel, all while claiming to speak from a “Catholic perspective.” Boller’s performance was a masterclass in how to weaponize a religious identity to launder discredited anti-Israel talking points and ancient antisemitic tropes.
Draped in a Palestinian flag lapel pin, Boller declared that “Catholics do not embrace Zionism” and refused to affirm Israel’s right to exist. She went further, reviving the deicidal charge that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, and chastised a pastor at the hearing for not affirming this view. Her insistence that denying Israel’s right to exist is not antisemitic, coupled with her repeated attempts to pivot the discussion to a supposed “genocide” in Gaza, revealed an agenda far removed from genuine Catholic teaching or concern for religious liberty.
Boller’s claims are a gross misrepresentation of the Catholic Church’s actual position. The Church does not, as Boller suggests, oppose Zionism—the belief in the Jewish people’s right to a national home in their ancestral land. On the contrary, the Vatican has repeatedly and formally recognized Israel’s right to exist as a legitimate, sovereign state. This recognition is enshrined in formal diplomatic agreements and has been reaffirmed by multiple popes.
Pope Francis himself has been explicit on this point, stating, “To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism. There may be political disagreements…but the State of Israel has every right to exist in safety and prosperity.” Boller’s anti-Zionist stance places her in direct opposition to the head of the Catholic Church.
Equally egregious is her resurrection of the charge of Jewish collective guilt for the death of Jesus. This toxic accusation was formally and definitively repudiated by the Catholic Church in 1965 with the promulgation of Nostra Aetate. This landmark declaration from the Second Vatican Council, issued under Pope Paul VI, explicitly states that the death of Jesus “cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.” For Boller to revive this charge is to ignore six decades of settled Church doctrine.
Her views are not only out of step with the Vatican but also with the majority of lay Catholics. A 2023 study found that Catholics who support Israel outnumber those who support Palestine by a three-to-one margin (34.8% to 11.4%). Furthermore, a 2024 survey of U.S. Christians found that 62% believe it is antisemitic to some extent to deny Israel’s right to exist, and only a fringe 8% believe Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus. As former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a devout Christian, explained, “In the simple answer to the question, ‘Who killed Jesus?’ I would say, I did. If I had not sinned, he wouldn’t have had to die… The bible says very clearly that his life was not taken from him. He gave his life.”
Boller’s repeated accusations of “genocide” in Gaza are also baseless and serve only to demonize Israel. The claim has been widely debunked. The majority of casualties in the conflict have been Hamas combatants, and Israel’s civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio of approximately 2-to-1 is far below the United Nations’ estimated global average of 9-to-1 for urban warfare. Public opinion reflects skepticism of the genocide claim, with 41% of U.S. Christians believing it is “probably false,” and another 34% unsure. When asked if Israel deliberately targets civilians, 51% said that was “probably false.”
Carrie Prejean Boller does not speak for Catholics. She is cosplaying as one, using the label to give a veneer of moral authority to an ideology of hate that the Catholic Church itself has explicitly condemned. By denying Israel’s right to exist, reviving the charge of deicide, and redefining antisemitism to suit her political agenda, she is not offering a “Catholic perspective.” She is contradicting settled Church teaching and weaponizing a religious identity to legitimize ideas that have been rejected by the faithful. What she presented was ideology, not faith, and it should be recognized as such.
