Overview
Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has taught that responsibility for Christ's death cannot be attributed to Jews collectively. It condemns antisemitism, and it regards Judaism as already a response to God's revelation. Most traditionalist Catholics who criticise Vatican II focus on liturgy, religious liberty or ecumenism. Watchdog organisations, journalists and Church authorities have, however, documented explicitly anti-Jewish content in a minority of traditionalist outlets, and some traditionalist writers reject the teaching of Nostra Aetate outright. This explainer sets out the official teaching, then the documented controversies with attribution, and then the criticism those watchdogs have themselves received.
What the Church teaches
Nostra Aetate 4 (1965)
Proclaimed by Paul VI on 28 October 1965, the conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate recalls "the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham's stock" (Holy See). It acknowledges that Jewish authorities and those who followed them pressed for Christ's death. It then states that what happened in the Passion cannot be charged against all Jews then alive, nor against the Jews of today. It also says Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God. The Church "decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone". The Anti-Defamation League summarises section 4 as a repudiation of the centuries-old "deicide" charge (ADL).
The Catechism
- CCC 597 applies the same teaching. The personal sin of those involved in the trial is known to God alone, and neither the Jews of that time nor Jews today may be blamed collectively. It adds that "the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture" (CCC 595–598).
- CCC 598 goes further: "The Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus."
- CCC 839, in the section on the Church's relationship with non-Christians, states that "The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant", and recalls that "the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (CCC 811–870). Benedict XVI recalled the Council's teaching on the Jewish people when he visited Rome's synagogue on 17 January 2010 (Holy See).
"The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable" (2015)
On 10 December 2015 the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews published a reflection to mark the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate 4. Its preface says it is a theological reflection, not a magisterial document (Commission documents). It states that the Church "neither conducts nor supports" any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews (JTA; Crux). Crux noted that the text plays down missionary efforts towards Jews without rejecting them entirely.
Leo XIV and the 2026 note
Pope Leo XIV marked the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate on 28 October 2025. He called its fourth chapter "the heart and generative core of the entire Declaration" (Holy See). At his general audience the next day he said that "the Church does not tolerate antisemitism and fights against it, on the basis of the Gospel itself" (Catholic World Report). The World Jewish Congress welcomed the statement (WJC). An analysis by the Jewish People Policy Institute called early signs from his pontificate mixed, noting criticism of his statements on the Gaza war (JPPI).
On 16 September 2026 the Vatican published A Journey of Hope, a note on sixty years of interreligious dialogue prepared jointly by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. It presents Nostra Aetate as the Church's response to the Shoah (Holy See; NCR). It includes a section on the distinctive character of dialogue with the Jewish people.
Documented controversies in traditionalist media
What watchdog groups report
- SPLC. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says that a small subset of traditionalist Catholics belong to "radical traditionalist" organisations whose rejection of Vatican II is rooted in antisemitism (SPLC). A 2007 SPLC report designated a dozen such groups as hate groups (SPLC). The SPLC's current list includes Culture Wars/Fidelity Press and "The Fatima Crusader / International Fatima Rosary Crusade" (SPLC); see Culture Wars and The Fatima Center.
- ADL. The ADL has published reports on the Society of Saint Pius X ("Mired in Anti-Semitism") (ADL). In January 2013 it called SSPX superior general Bernard Fellay an "unrepentant anti-Semite" after he described Jews as "enemies of the Church" (ADL statement via Dialogika).
E. Michael Jones and Culture Wars
E. Michael Jones edits Culture Wars in South Bend, Indiana. The ADL describes him as an antisemitic traditionalist writer and podcaster who portrays Jews as attacking the Church and the moral order (ADL). The SPLC says he presents Jews as the driving force behind social decay (SPLC). According to the SPLC, Jones rejects the label "antisemitic" and describes himself as "anti-Jewish"; the ADL argues that the distinction does not change the substance of his writing. On 19 February 2020 Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne–South Bend, in whose diocese Jones lives, issued a statement that coverage described as an indirect rebuke. It said the Church gives no cover to anti-Jewish bias (Israel Hayom; Algemeiner).
The Williamson case
On 21 January 2009 Swedish television broadcast an interview in which SSPX bishop Richard Williamson denied that Nazi gas chambers existed. In the same month Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops, including Williamson. The Vatican said the pope had not known of his views, and required him to disavow them publicly before he could exercise any episcopal function (Catholic Review; America). He never did. A German court convicted him of incitement, and the SSPX expelled him in October 2012 (NCR). In 2018 the ADL documented that he had repeated his Holocaust denial (ADL). He died on 29 January 2025 (timeline).
Open rejection of Nostra Aetate 4
Some sedevacantist media reject the conciliar teaching directly. A November 2025 article on Novus Ordo Watch argued that "the accusation of Deicide is eminently applicable to the Jews when they are viewed as a religion" (Novus Ordo Watch). That position contradicts Nostra Aetate 4 and CCC 597. See sedevacantism.
Criticism of the watchdogs' framing
Traditionalist leaders have objected to how these labels are applied. Michael Matt of The Remnant, which the SPLC has also listed, argues that the SPLC treats any attachment to the Latin Mass as a stand-in for hatred (Daily Signal). The issue drew wide attention in 2023. A leaked FBI Richmond field-office memo on "radical-traditionalist Catholics" cited SPLC material, and it listed Tradition in Action, The Remnant, Culture Wars and the Fatima Crusader among organisations it said adhered to that ideology. The FBI rescinded the memo, and the Bishop of Richmond rejected any conflation of traditional liturgical preference with extremism (Catholic Review; timeline). The SPLC itself distinguishes the groups it lists from traditionalist Catholics generally.
The historical and scholarly picture
- Drafting. Commentators note that the word "deicide" does not appear in the final text of Nostra Aetate; it was dropped during drafting (Conciliar Post).
- "Deplores" or "condemns". A 2015 essay in Homiletic & Pastoral Review observed that the declaration deplored antisemitism rather than formally condemning it (HPR).
- Mission and salvation. The 2015 reflection's treatment of mission and salvation has itself become a subject of theological commentary (JC Relations; Marianne Moyaert, 2018).
These debates concern how to interpret and develop the teaching. They do not reopen the collective-guilt charge that the Council and the Catechism exclude.
Key outlets and voices
Culture Wars, E. Michael Jones, Richard Williamson, Bernard Fellay, the Society of Saint Pius X and The Fatima Center.
Related explainers: ecumenism and interreligious dialogue and extra ecclesiam nulla salus.