Catholic scholar quits Heritage over its president's defense of Tucker Carlson interview

(OSV News) -- Prominent Catholic philosophical and legal scholar Robert P. George has resigned from the board of the conservative Heritage Foundation, saying he "could not remain" without its president fully retracting a video defending a controversial interview, platforming a leading white supremacist, that has split conservatives over the issue of antisemitism.

The furor erupted just days after extensive Vatican commemorations of the 60th anniversary of "Nostra Aetate" ("In Our Time"), the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, in which the Catholic Church formally denounced antisemitism.

George's resignation, announced in his Nov. 17 Facebook post, marks one of the latest flights from that institution as its president, Kevin Roberts, has found himself enmeshed in defending -- and then attempting to distance himself from -- an Oct. 27 interview by media personality Tucker Carlson with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, which featured a number of antisemitic comments by the latter.

Earlier this month, George had posted on X that "the conservative movement, though it can and should be a broad tent, simply cannot include or accommodate white supremacists or racists of any type, antisemites, eugenicists, or others whose ideologies are incompatible with belief in the inherent and equal dignity of all.

"As a conservative, I say that there is no place for such people in our movement," he wrote.

The departure of George -- a Catholic intellectual and jurisprudence professor at Princeton University, whose work spans law, philosophy, ethics and religious liberty -- follows the similar Heritage resignation of Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, from the foundation's National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

Other Jewish groups affiliated with the effort, collectively known as Project Esther, have withdrawn or threatened to do so as well in response to Roberts' video.

Fuentes, who routinely claims to hold "traditional Catholic views," has also previously promoted the deicide charge -- explicitly condemned in "Nostra Aetate" -- by which the Jewish people are incorrectly held eternally liable for the death of Jesus Christ.

Throughout the Carlson interview, Fuentes invoked the antisemitic tropes that have characterized his political activism -- including the "dual loyalty" charge, whereby Jewish people are cast as untrustworthy, with their ultimate allegiance allegedly being to Israel and the worldwide Jewish community. Fuentes claimed "organized Jewry in America" was a "big challenge" to putting tribal interest aside for corporate interest, referencing an earlier comment Carlson had made about competing interests, saying Jews were not capable of that.

During the interview, Carlson at times gently disagreed with Fuentes, countering, "My Christian faith tells me that there's no such thing as blood guilt" -- but he did not actively challenge Fuentes' antisemitic tropes as such, even asserting, "Obviously, I'm denounced as an anti-Semite every day. I don't really care what ADL thinks of me," a reference to the Anti-Defamation League.

The American Jewish Committee condemned Carlson's interview, stating that "Fuentes used the platform to promote a wide range of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes."

At one point in his exchange with Carlson, Fuentes noted he was a "fan" and "admirer" of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin -- whose atrocities include sweeping detentions, mass executions and the deaths of some 4 million Ukrainians due to an artificial famine known as the Holodomor.

Stalin also forcibly suppressed the Ukrainian Catholic Church, seizing its churches, exiling and imprisoning its leaders -- including Cardinal Josyf Slipyj -- and driving its faithful to worship in secret. The church reemerged as Ukraine gained independence following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Roberts weighed in Oct. 30 with a video posted to X, saying Carlson "remains" and "always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation."

While stating that "antisemitism should be condemned," Roberts -- a Catholic and the former president of Wyoming Catholic College -- accused a "venomous coalition" of "attacking" Carlson and "sowing division."

"Their attempt to cancel him will fail," Roberts declared, adding, "the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right."

Roberts said, "I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says. But cancelling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person's thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas and debate. And we have seen success in this approach as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left."

However, a number of conservatives and Republican elected officials have also denounced Carlson's interview of Fuentes, among them House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.; and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

In contrast, President Donald Trump has voiced his support for Carlson, telling reporters Nov. 16, "You can't tell him who to interview. ... Ultimately, people have to decide." Trump also claimed to not know much about Fuentes, who joined Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, for dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, in 2022.

Roberts, however, has since sought to walk back his defense of Carlson's interview, saying at a Nov. 4 appearance at Hillsdale College that his X video had been "a mistake made with the best of intentions." He offered an apology "especially to any friends, particularly Jewish friends," and vowed that Heritage "will never, ever, ever" stop fighting antisemitism.

But, said George in his statement, "although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse."

In an August article (and subsequent podcast) for the American Jewish journal SAPIR, George had explored the Catholic Church's understanding of Jews and Judaism, writing that "any attempt to deny or undermine God's unique and mysterious bond with the Jewish people -- a bond that was never abrogated and that reflects God's special and continued care for them -- is both antithetical to Christianity (it denies Christianity's fundamentally Jewish roots) and opposed to the Catholic Church's teachings.

"This includes all efforts, largely motivated by gravely sinful prejudice against Jewish people and Judaism, to delegitimize, dishonor, or vilify Jewish faith and practice," wrote George, who also lamented that "sadly, we are today witnessing a resurgence of antisemitic beliefs and attitudes, including among people who claim to be faithful Christians and orthodox Catholics -- from celebrity influencers, political commentators, and fringe priests to legions of anonymous social media users."

In his post, George described Roberts as "a good man" who had "made what he acknowledged was a serious mistake.

"Being human myself, I have plenty of experience in making mistakes," wrote George. "What divided us was a difference of opinion about what was required to rectify the mistake."

He admitted he was "sad to be leaving the Heritage board," and wished his former Heritage colleagues "the very best."

George expressed his hope that Heritage would be "unbending and unflinching" in maintaining its original vision of "upholding the moral principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the civic principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States."

He also prayed that "Heritage's research and advocacy will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is 'created equal' and 'endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.'

"The anchor for the Heritage Foundation, and for our Nation, and for every patriotic American is that creed," wrote George. "It must always be that creed. If we hold fast to it even when expediency counsels compromising it, we cannot go wrong. If we abandon it, we sign the death certificate of republican government and ordered liberty."