Mike Johnson Makes it Clear the GOP No Longer Wants the Catholic Vote
For several months, the Catholic Church has spoken with one voice about the persecution of Catholics in the Holy Land and Gaza. Statement after outraged statement from history’s first American-born pope, from the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, from the clergy in the West Bank, and from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops could not have been clearer: Israel and the radical Israeli settlers of the West Bank must be held accountable for their attempts to terrorize the ancient indigenous Christian communities of the Holy Land from their home.
And Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson could hardly have been clearer either in his response: Ahead of a midterm election that even conservative pollsters are warning could easily strip the GOP of its control of the House, the Republican Party has decided to abandon Catholic voters. “We would rather lose power and deliver the U.S. into the hands of the Democratic Party,” he might as well have said, “than serve Catholics.”
I’m referring to Johnson’s outrageous decision this week to visit the West Bank and endorse the radical Israeli settlers’ illegal campaign to cleanse the region of Catholics. It was an aggressive move – unannounced and therefore all the more guaranteed to draw attention and headlines, almost like a political surprise attack on Pope Leo and his flock for expressing concern about their coreligionists in the region.
While visiting the Ariel settlement, according to The Times of Israel, “Johnson said that the ‘mountains of Judea and Samaria’ belong to the Jewish people ‘by right,’ using the biblical name for the West Bank that is favored by Israel’s government.”
“Every corner of this land is important to us. It is an integral part of our faith, and therefore the significance for us is great… We stand entirely by your side,” he said.
Johnson made those remarks in the context of a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza Pope Leo has explicitly condemned as “barbaric.”
This just weeks after an Israeli tank shell struck Gaza’s only Catholic parish, killing three churchgoers as they left Mass and wounding a dozen other Catholic parishioners.
And just days after, in quick succession, two U.S. citizens were reportedly murdered by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Also present at Johnson’s West Bank dinner was Israel Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, a radical settler organization considered criminal by the majority of the world’s governments.
In a recent speech, Ganz called for the total overthrow of Palestinian power in the West Bank. To make his case, he favorably cited a Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCSFA) poll purporting to show 68% of Israeli Jews accusing West Bank Palestinians of plotting another October 7-style attack against them. This was the same poll that shocked the world, with many arguing it confirmed international fears that Israel is bent on ethnically cleansing Gaza: 75% of Israeli respondents to the JCSFA survey said they wanted Gaza’s population to be driven out of their homeland for good.
“Ganz called Johnson’s visit ‘a step that shows significant support for settlement and for the historical and national connection of the Jewish people to the area,’” the Times of Israel reported. “He wrote that he showed Johnson a proposal for Israel to annex the territory.”
2026 and Beyond
In a way, the direction of public interests and sympathies has never been more aligned with the powerful, timeless truths the Catholic Church upholds – nor ever more attentive to the next move of American politicians in particular. And I mean globally: All eyes are on Gaza and the West Bank. All ears are tuned to the courageous words of the first American pope. All people of good will are scrutinizing men like Johnson, bearing in mind all the moral stakes of Israel’s indefensible actions.
And even on the smaller scale of U.S domestic politics, RealClearPolling released a warning just this week that “unless Republicans can make a significant dent in the Democrats’ lead, they will likely lose the House” in the 2026 midterms.
The Catholic vote is a decisive factor in every election. Johnson knows that, and has nonetheless chosen to write Catholics off in the most egregiously insulting way possible. And this is to say nothing of the Palestinian communities in swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania who were key to delivering the GOP’s most recent electoral victories.
Unless other Republican lawmakers – especially those who profess to be Catholic – speak out strongly against Johnson’s insult, Catholic voters will only have one message to act on at the ballot box in 2026 and, if the GOP’s current posture persists, in 2028.
That message is this: the aims of a radical secular foreign government are more important to the Republican Party than Catholics – and more important than the Palestinian widows and orphans whom Catholics are bound by their faith to serve. The ideological and military goals of one wildly unpopular and corrupt politician, Netanyahu, are in fact so important to Johnson’s GOP that the Party is even willing to abandon its own political interests and cede power to Democrats – knowing they will serve at the pleasure of the same anti-Catholic foreign lobby.
And if that’s the GOP message to Catholics ahead of the midterms, it’s obvious how Catholic voters can be expected to respond.
Support VPP as we bring food and clean water to Christians and orphans struggling to survive in Gaza: www.VulnerablePeople Project.com
