Letter from America - Phelim MccAleer: Zealous young Catholics in the US back Donald Trump but hate the state of Israel and are causing a civil war within American conservatism

And News Letter readers probably won’t be surprised to learn that it is Catholics who seem to be stirring up the trouble.

I’ve written before about the significant demographic shift in American conservative politics—how my co-religionists, the Catholics, were once solid Democrats, and are now very much Trumpite Republicans.

This shift has been largely responsible for Trump’s presidential majorities and Republican Party wins in the former working-class Democratic Party strongholds of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

And from key figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to a US Supreme Court that features five Catholic conservatives the Republican conservative establishment has become increasingly Catholic shifting from Protestant evangelical dominance.

However, these old-school working class and establishment Catholics are not the ones sowing the seeds of division in Trump world. In fact, they are often the target of the new, young Catholic zealots pounding the streets, corridors, and pews of Washington, DC. These are the new ultra-Catholics, and they mean business. And they don't care who they offend.

The most public line of division for these young zealots is Israel. They do not like or support the state of Israel, nor do they support its prosecution of the war in Gaza. They also do not think that America should be sending military aid or money to the country. Now, this could be seen in the wider context of how young Trumpers, stung by the bloody debacles of Afghanistan and Iraq, are becoming increasingly isolationist. They point out that it was the older generation of Republicans who led them into these endless and losing wars while ignoring industrial devastation in America’s heartlands.

That is, of course, one theory. But their focus on Israel is peculiar and can often seem theological rather than political. The Catholic Church has had a rather problematic relationship with Jews throughout its history so it does stand out when the latest generation expresses hostility to Israel.

Take, for example, the young firebrand Carrie Prejean-Boller—a former beauty queen whose Miss California title was stripped from her in 2009 after opposing gay marriage (apparently men marrying men, along with looking good in a swimsuit, was considered a necessary qualification).

She has now re-emerged in public life as a zealous member of President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, which was set up to counter what supporters see as a progressive campaign to demonize Christians and expel them from public life.

A recent convert to Catholicism (the converts are always the worst, aren’t they? Or the best, I suppose, depending on your point of view), Prejean-Boller used a meeting of the commission to make clear just how much she opposed Israel’s war in Gaza – and, more strikingly, how theologically she detested the state of Israel. She expanded on this in a subsequent post on X:

“I will never bend the knee to the state of Israel. Ever. I am more determined than ever to speak plainly about political Zionism and the lies we've been sold to justify endless war, dead children, and blank checks. My conversion to the fullness of the Catholic faith exposed what I was taught in American evangelicalism—a version of Christianity that fused Jesus with a political agenda and called it ‘God's prophecy being fulfilled.’ It isn’t.”

She then thanked commentator Candace Owens (also a Catholic convert) for her support. Owens had claimed Zionists are "hostile to Catholics" and support "mass slaughter and rape of innocent children for occult Baal worshipers." In other words, the classical anti-semitic trope that Jews ritually sacrifice Christian children. Comments such as these could make one think that this is more than a mere foreign policy disagreement.

And the Catholic wave has touched the top of DC’s power structure.

The Heritage Foundation, one of the most powerful institutions in conservative Washington, has long played a central role in shaping Republican administrations by training young staffers and future political leaders.

But Kevin Roberts, a Catholic who took over the foundation a few years ago, has faced allegations that he was also promoting a distinctly Catholic ethos within the organisation. The Washington Post reported that staffers had written a letter of complaint to the board accusing Roberts of favouring Catholics and reshaping Heritage’s culture. Although the board dismissed the claims as unfounded, the issue resurfaced in a much more explosive context.

The turning point came after broadcaster Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a known extremist who used the platform to criticise what he called “organised Jewry in America.” Roberts was pressed to distance the Heritage Foundation from Carlson, who was his friend and was also receiving over a million dollars in sponsorship from the organisation.

However, Roberts doubled down, defended Carlson, and attacked his opponents using terminology that many claimed had anti-semitic overtones.

At a subsequent Heritage meeting, Roberts apologised publicly. Yet a leaked recording revealed that young Catholic staffers strongly supported him and framed their support through explicitly religious terms. One staffer said, “Gen Z has an increased unfavourable view of Israel and it’s not because millions of Americans are anti-semitic. It’s because we are Catholic and Orthodox.”

The staffer argued that their concerns were theological, not political, insisting that “Christian Zionism is a modern heresy.”

As I said, this could be just a political spat – a younger generation taking aim at the older generation who they think has lost its way. They see vice President JD Vance (of Scots-Irish Protestant descent but now a Catholic convert) as their leader in waiting and he has made supportive gestures – welcoming Tucker Carlson into the White House. Support for Israel is very much part of the older Republicans’ identity and Christian Zionism is very much part of the American Evangelical Protestant identity. These young Catholics say they want no return to the, mostly Protestant, pre-Trump Republican party and are using support for Israel as a way to show they are not going back and as a purity test for their perceived enemies.

That's the optimistic interpretation for their hostility to Israel. The other scenario, anti-semitism, is much scarier. And in America, it is a sure road to electoral oblivion.

Phelim McAleer is from Tyrone and is a Los Angeles based producer and journalist