An online conference billed “Hope Is Fuel: Catholic on Purpose” is sparking flames of controversy, after a number of speakers withdrew over other panelists’ views on antisemitism, Jewish-Catholic relations and the validity of Pope Francis’ papacy.
The May 24 event, led by author and media personality Patrick Coffin, was slated to include talks by several well-known Catholic presenters and apologists, including Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, president of the Magis Center, which advances dialogue between faith and science; author and Bible instructor Jeff Cavins; and Jennifer Roback Morse, founder of the Ruth Institute, an interfaith coalition that promotes family life.
They and 17 other speakers have since canceled their appearances. In a May 11 tweet posted by the Magis Center, Father Spitzer said had been made aware that same day that “Patrick Coffin has challenged the authenticity of the (sic) Pope Francis,” and that “full disclosure … about Mr. Coffin’s controversial position” had not been made to him prior to the interview.
Coffin’s blog contains numerous posts asserting that Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement was invalid, and that Pope Francis is not the legitimate pontiff.
“I do not hold his position and would never hold this position,” Father Spitzer said, adding he also had requested his name “not be associated with the series or other projects he is hosting, including advertising, etc.”
Coffin told OSV News that he views Pope Francis as an “anti-pope” presiding during an “interregnum” period in the papacy.
Coffin said that the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis had been orchestrated by the “St. Gallen Mafia,” often cited by conspiracy theorists as an alleged group of high-ranking liberal clerics seeking to advance a left-wing agenda in the church.
In a May 14 video and print statement, Morse said she was already aware of Coffin’s position on Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation and had told him she did not agree.
However, Morse resigned from the conference on learning that it also featured E. Michael Jones, author of “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit: Its Impact on World History” who is cited by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for extensive antisemitic writings.
Morse said in her statement that while Jones had produced “several important books” in the past, his recent works, which she considered antisemitic, were “poisonous.”
“Antisemitism carries a historical load that no other form of discrimination carries. … The world does not need antisemitism, especially from a Catholic,” Morse stated.
“Jones was a dealbreaker,” she told OSV News.
Jones told OSV News that he stood by his premise, articulated in “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit,” that “when the Jews rejected Christ, they rejected the Logos incarnate, and they rejected the order of the universe.”
Jones accused Jews of being “the main supporters of feminism, homosexuality, transgenderism and abortion.” He added that “abortion is a fundamental Jewish value … a sacrament (and) a way of becoming Jewish.”
Claiming “the church has never defined antisemitism,” Jones asserted “the people who call themselves Jews are in rebellion against everything Moses stood for, because he was waiting for the Messiah.”
“If I were speaking to someone who was Jewish, I would say, ‘You killed Christ,'” Jones said.
Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church repudiated antisemitism with the 1965 promulgation of “Nostra Aetate” (“In our time”) by St. Paul VI. The church affirmed in that declaration that “God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; he does not repent of the gifts he makes or of the calls he issues.”
While the Jewish authorities of Jesus’ time pressed for his death, the church teaches that “what happened in (Christ’s) passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”
“Nostra Aetate” stated the church also “decries hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”
Coffin told OSV News that he was “absolutely not dropping Jones” from the conference lineup.
“I suppose ‘The Jewish Revolution’ could be interpreted as antisemitic, but I don’t believe in being ritually tainted by someone else’s ideas,” he said.
He agreed with Jones that “antisemitism had not been defined by the church,” and that “‘Nostra Aetate’ is not to be held up as crystallizing dogma or church teaching. I’m not saying it’s worthless; I’m just saying it’s not the same thing.”
Coffin asserted the conference had been deliberately singled out by Catholic author and scholar Dawn Eden Goldstein.
“She began to target my speakers one after the other,” claimed Coffin. “She accused me of sedevacantism (the belief that the current pope is invalid, leaving the chair of St. Peter therefore unoccupied) and antisemitism. That’s career-killing, and no one seems to define it.”
In response to Coffin’s allegations, Goldstein — a convert to Catholicism from Judaism — told OSV News that Coffin himself was seeking to scapegoat “a Jewish Catholic convert on Twitter whose name is Goldstein” now that leading Catholics were running away from his conference. “His argument is ‘oh, it’s the Jews messing everything up.'”
Goldstein said she previously supported Coffin’s earlier work with Catholic Answers, but noticed Coffin had “changed” over the years, “becoming extremely right-wing and anti-Pope Francis,” while “developing a brand as a conspiracy theorist.”
She described Jones’ work as “virulent and vilely antisemitic,” evoking the horrors of the Holocaust.
“I hear the SS Stormtrooper boots and I smell the ash of Auschwitz — the ash that not only was the (remains of) incinerated Jews but Catholic saints such as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and St. Maximilian Kolbe,” said Goldstein. “No Catholic should ever have that scent. That’s the smoke of Satan.”
“It breaks my heart, because Patrick (Coffin) is my brother in Christ,” she added.
According to the Hope is Fuel Conference, the following Catholics are committed to speak: John-Henry Westen, Ray Guarendi, Christopher West, Gavin Ashenden, Rachel Fulton Brown, Hugh Owen, E. Michael Jones, Eric Genuis, Bas Rutten, Dan Driver, John Saladino, Father Alexander Crow, Jesse Romero, Father John Lovell, Patrick Reidy, William M. Briggs, Elliott Hulse, Veronica Flamenco, Tim and Stephanie Gordon, David Torkington, Royce White, Matthew Plese, Ami Fournier, Tom Leopold, Richard Decarie, Abby Johnson, Peter Kwasniewski, Matthew Marsden, Father Cristino Bouvette, John Gerard Lewis and Sara Huff.
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