Cardinal Sparks Jewish Anger Over Jerusalem

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WESTMINSTER, England (ChurchMilitant.com) - Cardinal Vincent Nichols is facing accusations of anti-Semitism and anti-Trumpism after he warned British prime minister Liz Truss not to relocate Britain's embassy to Jerusalem.

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has also been accused of having double standards for defending Palestinians and Muslims but refusing to address the persecution of Caroline Farrow — a Catholic journalist and wife of Catholic priest Fr. Robin Farrow. 

Cardinal's Bias 

On Thursday, Nichols said that he had "written to the prime minister to express profound concern over her call for a review of the location of the British Embassy to the state of Israel, with the suggestion that it might be moved away from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."

The cardinal quoted "Pope Francis and the leaders of churches in the Holy Land who have long called for the international status quo on Jerusalem to be upheld, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions." 

"The city must be shared as a common patrimony, never becoming an exclusive monopoly of any party," Nichols stated in a series of tweets posted a day after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) — the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

"I can see no valid reason why a move needs now to be considered. I ask the prime minister earnestly to reconsider the intention she has expressed and to focus all efforts on seeking a two-state solution, in which Jerusalem would have a guaranteed special status," he added.

Biblical Capital

Well-known Catholic author Nick Donnelly told Church Militant that the cardinal is "yet again taking his cue from the left-wing agenda of the globalist elites who are decidedly pro-Muslim and anti-Semitic," even though "it is God who established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel." 

Deacon Donnelly, author of the bestselling A Catholic Survival Guide for Times of Emergency, explained how leftists were incensed by President Donald Trump's decision to relocate the United States Embassy to Jerusalem because of its "implicit recognition of YHWH's lordship over history." 

The Israel–Britain Alliance slammed Nichols for displaying a "fundamental political naivety" and asked: "Sovereign states naming their own capital is normal. When did normal become a bad idea?"

International human rights lawyer, Arsen Ostrovsky, responded: "Dear Cardinal, I suggest you read your scriptures — what they say about Jerusalem. You might then care to reconsider your opinion."

'Useful Idiots'

Speaking to Church Militant, Jewish anthropologist and columnist Karen Harradine lamented that Pope Francis and Cdl. Nichols had become "useful idiots for Islamic radicals, setting the tone for a destructive agenda against Israel," especially when Israel had become a haven for Christians fleeing jihadist persecution. 

"Christians are the most persecuted people in the world. Many flee persecution in the Palestinian territories for the sanctity of Israel. Why hasn't Cdl. Nichols tweeted his outrage over the plight of these Christians instead of targeting Jews?" Harradine asked. 

"That Cdl. Nichols parrots the UN's pernicious resolutions on Israel in his tweets shows his anti-Semitic tendencies and his cowardly pandering to the Islamists who dominate the UN," Harradine noted. 

"How unsurprising too that Cdl. Nichols is anti-Trumpist, given that President Donald Trump proved to be a good friend of Israel and rightly moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018," she added. 

Cardinal's Cowardice

Echoing voices on social media, Harradine and Donnelly asked why Nichols remained tight-lipped over the human rights violation of Caroline Farrow, who was arrested last week by Surrey police after they forced their way into her home without a warrant. 

Farrow, who works as the U.K. and Ireland campaign director at CitizenGO, said she was arrested over a "twitter argument" as "a result of the complaint actively trying to trash my reputation in the media and with the Catholic Church and deprive me of work." 

The mother of five told Church Militant that "local clergy have been very supportive, but so far [there is] nothing official." Farrow's husband is a convert from Anglicanism who was ordained a Catholic priest not through the ordinariate but through his diocese. 

"My legal team have [sic] informed me that they believe I have a case against Surrey police and have written a pre-action letter, requesting disclosure including CCTV footage of what happened in the custody suite," Farrow tweeted Monday. 

Farrow was investigated by Surrey police in 2019 over allegations that she used the wrong pronoun to describe a transgender woman and was subjected to vicious anti-Catholic hatred on social media.  

"Another indication that Cdl. Nichols is aligned with the globalist agenda is his silence over the heavy-handed arrest of a Catholic mother by the police at the instigation of a transgender activist," Donnelly told Church Militant. 

As Christians are bullied by trans-activist thugs "because we uphold God's creation of man as male and female (Genesis 1:27), it is tragic to see the cardinal reduced to being a servant of political forces that are so inimical to God and the well-being of man," the deacon lamented. 

"The police have no proof that Farrow broke any laws, yet threw her into a cell for hours and confiscated computer devices belonging to her and her children. State persecution of Christians is happening right now in the U.K. But Nichols is yet to call this out or the diabolical treatment of this devout Catholic by the police," Harradine stressed.  

"He ignores all of this and instead uses his influential voice to interfere in Israel and its sovereign right to have Jerusalem as its capital city," she noted. 

Nichols responded to Church Militant's request for comment by reiterating that he had written to the prime minister "expressing his concern about the proposed review of the location of the U.K. embassy to Israel and the damaging consequences to lasting peace of such a move."

The cardinal did not explain why he had failed to defend Farrow from continued anti-Catholic bigotry and police intimidation. 

On Saturday, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, joined Nichols in urging Truss to refrain from relocating the British embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

Though the Vatican supported the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which partitioned Palestine, it didn't formally recognize Israel as a state until 1993, in a fundamental agreement citing the documents Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate from Vatican II. 

The agreement guaranteed Israel's respect and protection of "Catholic sacred places, such as churches, monasteries, convents, cemeteries and their like" and "freedom of Catholic worship," as well as "the right of the Catholic Church to establish, maintain and direct schools and institutes of study at all levels."

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