Christine Flowers: Antisemitism again, this time from Religious Liberty Commission member

I thought I could abandon the topic of antisemitism for a few weeks.

There was Pam Bondi to ridicule, ICE raids to criticize, and an idiotic Super Bowl halftime show performed in Spanish by a guy who didn’t want us to know how misogynistic he really is.

Bunny, you really are malo.

But then a woman whom I shall call “insta-Catholic” opened her mouth and, like Michael Corleone, they pulled me back in.

Carrie Prejean is a former beauty queen who won the Miss California crown in 2009 and competed at the national pageant defended “opposite sex” marriage in the question-and-answer segment.

Needless to say, she did not become Miss USA. She also lost her state title, very likely because of her controversial views.

I admired her for speaking out. Back in 2009, I also opposed “opposite sex” marriage, even though I called it same-sex marriage, like the rest of the world.

I didn’t believe there was a constitutional basis for the right, just as I don’t believe there was ever a constitutional basis for abortion.

But society and the courts disagreed, and I’ve moved on.

So did Carrie. She parlayed her semi-notoriety into a gig as a Covid conservative who opposed masking children and then went all in on the trans issues.

I tend to agree with her on all of these things: masking was wrong, transitioning children is wrong, and I’m still scratching my head about Jim marrying John.

I write this to show you that I am not aiming for Carrie the Catholic out of some political or personal vendetta.

In normal times, we would likely be philosophical allies.

But these are not normal times. These are the times, as our friend Thomas wrote, that try men’s souls. In fact, they make us examine if we even have souls anymore.

When I last wrote about antisemitism, I mentioned that my own faith had a lot of explaining to do for our centuries of Jew hatred: The Inquisition, the blind eye to the Holocaust from the highest echelons, the blood libels that we helped perpetuate.

Yes, there were the silent heroes like Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish Catholic priest and the leader of an anti-Nazi resistance group in Rome.

Through his connections and his savvy mind, he was able to save 6,500 Jews and Allied soldiers.

This earned him the nickname “The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican.” But O’Flaherty’s bravery only underscores the cowardice of many others at the Vatican, who were afraid to ruffle the feathers of the Axis powers.

That he worked miracles is amazing. That he had to do it in darkness is disturbing.

I write, now, about this great example of Catholic moral heroism to remind my brothers and sisters in faith that we cannot allow ourselves to backslide into the tar pits of antisemitism.

I know that we will not be marching with torches, saying things like “The Jews will not replace us.” That is so 2017.

But some of us have absolutely no problem pretending that anti-Zionism is not a veiled form of antisemitism, and saying things like “The Jews killed Jesus.”

I know this because insta-Catholic Carrie Prejean made exactly those comments the other day during a seminar on antisemitism held in DC.

Prejean had been appointed to the White House Religious Liberty Commission and made those remarks in her official capacity, while sporting an enamel pin of Palestine on her lapel. I call her insta-Catholic because she’s only been one of us for about a year.

I have no idea what she was before she joined the family.

I do know that this recent convert hasn’t gotten the memo that no, the Jews did not kill Jesus. If we are going to be picky about it, my ancestors, the Romans, did that.

True, the Jews were involved at some level, but I’m pretty sure that Pontius Pilate didn’t keep kosher.

The point is that when a non-Jew says that the Jews killed “our savior,” they are pointing fingers and blaming innocent men and women for what we consider to be one of the greatest crimes of humanity.

Children who grew up hearing “the Jews killed Jesus” have no problem internalizing their bigotry.

That was on full display when Prejean was removed from the commission by an embarrassed White House. She became a martyr for religious freedom, with fans saying things like “Israel just killed another one” and “Why does America have to always bend the knee to Jews?”

This is not like the hanging of Jews in effigy, which just happened in Philadelphia. This is the more subtle sort of racism that seeps into the bones and becomes part of our marrow.

Catch them young, you have them for life. Except, you don’t.

Good Catholics see the bigotry of a new convert like Carrie, and we reject her. We celebrate her firing, and we scream, “Not in our name!”

Even Bill Donohoe of the Catholic League, a formidable conservative, condemned Prejean.

Not in our name.

So score one for the good guys this week.

And if you’re interested in a true Catholic hero, one who wasn’t as pretty as Prejean but who surely wears a better crown than Miss California, read up on Hugh O’Flaherty, a very righteous gentile.

This article originally appeared in the Delco Times.

Christine Flowers can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.