I am proud, as a rabbi, to have deep and strong relationships with my Catholic brothers and sisters. I’ve always believed that the Messiah will come, and we Jews will say “welcome,” while my Catholic and Christian brethren will say “welcome back,” and all true people of faith will accept Him. I am thankful for having taught theological studies at LMU, a Catholic University. And I am grateful for having made a positive difference for American Catholics when I wrote the first article condemning the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023 for their honoring of a drag queen group that degrades the Church in general and nuns specifically.
I am especially honored that a man as great as Gen. Michael Flynn commented on that article, saying, “It is remarkable that this leader of the Jewish community, that someone not even Catholic has more courage to speak up than some in Catholic leadership itself.” And I was grateful that my article inspired the group Catholics for Catholics to have a rally at Dodger Stadium in protest, and that I was asked to speak at the event.
This is why I am so profoundly saddened, and absolutely shocked, that Catholics for Catholics is having one of America’s biggest Jew-haters, Candace Owens, as a keynote speaker at their annual fundraising gala on March 19.
Catholics for Catholics is choosing to honor one of the biggest Jew-hating grifters on social media. A woman who has been building her career over the last two years on anti-Israel conspiracy theories, blaming the problems of the world on “the Jews,” crazily claiming that Judaism believes in child sacrifice and wants to take over the world, making entirely false lies about Jewish theology (which could easily be fact checked with less than one minute of actual research), and even blaming Israel for the death of Charlie Kirk.
Candace Owens has long been an anti-Semite, and I was actually the first person to write about her (and Tucker Carlson’s) obvious Jew-hatred. But while I recognized it over 2 years ago, when it was an unique opinion, it is now accepted by nearly everyone that Candace Owens is on par in her hatred of Jews with the other crazies like Nick Fuentes, the Tate brothers, the Hodge twins, and, as he demonstrated again with his interview of Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Tucker Carlson.
So why is John Yep, the president of Catholic for Catholics, allowing Owens to speak at their annual fundraiser? There are so many great Catholic men and women who could speak instead such as Justice Clarence Thomas, Vice President J.D. Vance, Justice Samuel Alito, Cardinal Raymond Burke, and Tammy Roberts Peterson. If Yep wanted a social media influencer, he could have reached out to Jack Posobiec, a huge conservative influencer who, unlike Owens, actually knows Catholic theology. Jack, who prays the Latin Mass, is a man of deep faith whom I have been with when he recited the Lord’s Prayer in the original Aramaic. So why is John Yep and Catholics for Catholics bringing on the ignorant and hate-filled Candace Owens to this event, and how can the other wise panelists on this program even be willing to be on a stage with her (if they even know that she is invited)?
(I reached out multiple times directly to John Yep, whom I know, via text and phone messages to discuss this issue. Yep has refused to respond via phone or text to me, so I can only make suppositions based on what I know of him.)
Yep was a missionary for 15 years and is deeply devoted to his faith tradition. With a master’s degree in theology from St. John’s University, he has over and over demonstrated a love for the most conservative theological understanding of Catholicism. He is close with Bishop Joseph Strickland, the conservative bishop who accused Pope Francis of “usurping Peter’s chair” and was ultimately removed from his position by Francis. (I actually wrote an article suggesting that Strickland and Francis should work out their issues as they are both great leaders devoted in different ways to God and their faith.) In the past, Yep has always been grateful for my support of him and of Catholics for Catholics, as well as my continued respect for and support of all traditional practices.
But Yep is also a self-promoter, sometimes making the organization more about him than about theology, and trying to position himself not only as a “Catholic Charlie Kirk,” but as a leader whom Charlie would follow into Catholicism. Yep has claimed that Kirk was going to convert to Catholicism and followed TPUSA’s footsteps by hosting a $1500 per person event led by Bishop Strickland at Mar-a-Lago last year.
I like John Yep and would prefer to believe that it is his commitment to and passion for Catholicism that motivates him, and not financial success and fame. But his embrace of Candace Owens is shocking and disappointing. It is clear pandering to attract a large audience composed of crazies who are committed to conspiracy theories, not theology. With so many other great Catholic leaders available, choosing this woman is a shameless way to draw in her audience for fundraising.
Candace Owens, through her words and actions, has repeatedly contradicted Pope Saint John Paul II, who consistently called throughout his life for solidarity between Christians and Jews, observing in 1982 that “the links between the Church and the Jewish people are grounded in the design of the God of the Covenant.” She has rejected the founding principles of Nostra Aetate (1965), which unquestionably hold that the Covenant with the Jewish people remains intact. Her hatred of all things Israel is astounding and rooted in ignorance. For example, she once claimed that Israel is an apartheid state that keeps Muslims segregated—until it was publicly explained to her that this is not law, but rather the personal choices of shopkeepers, which have left the Old City of Jerusalem unofficially divided into the Jewish, Christian, Armenian, and Muslim “quarters.”
I pray that John Yep and the organization will take some time for discernment, and reevaluate this incredibly poor choice. If Catholics for Catholics, under John Yep’s leadership, insists on having this reprehensible and ignorant woman as a keynote speaker in order to raise money for the organization, then I pray that the other great leaders on this panel like Matt Walsh (who has repeatedly condemned Candace as morally wrong and even devoted an entire show to debunking Candace’s accusations against Erika Kirk) embrace the courage of their faith tradition by choosing to step away from this March event as long as she is involved.
There has been a real war going on in the world for the last few years, and it is much more insidious than just military conflict. It is a war of the secular versus religious, a war between those who accept God into their hearts and those who believe that they are gods themselves and worship secular values. This is a war that we must win in order for our culture and civilization to continue to thrive. There is no place in this war for the hatred of people like Candace Owens, who drive wedges between people of faith, between Jews and Catholics, and who pray upon the lowest common denominator of hate in order to grow their audience.
I will continue to always support my brothers and sisters of the Catholic faith in their spiritual journey. I pray that all Jews will do the same. I pray that Catholics for Catholics chooses to reject the hatred of grifters like Candace Owens and embrace the true teachings of God and the Bible. I pray for the courage of the other scheduled speakers at this March event.
And I pray that not only Catholics for Catholics, but all of us, choose to remember the words of the great French Catholic philosopher and theologian Jacques Maritain, who famously said that “Catholic antisemite” is not just an error — it is an oxymoron.
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