Editor’s note: This report contains a couple of references to immoral sexual paraphernalia. Reader discretion is advised.

(LifeSiteNews) — Ahead of the funeral of Francis this weekend, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is renewing his mission to promote Cardinal Pietro Parolin as the next pope.

Shmuley, known to Catholic audiences through his labeling of Candace Owens as “antisemitic” for proclaiming “Christ is King,” has returned to Rome to endorse the candidacy of Cdl. Parolin, who he says “may be the next pope.”

Shmuley, who is also well known for selling sex toys with his daughter online, described Parolin as “a great man and a phenomenal friend of the world Jewish community” in an April 22 post on X:

As we mourn the great Pope Francis, it seems that Cardinal Pietro Perolin, Cardinal Secretary of State, May be the Next Pope. He is a great man and a phenomenal friend of the world Jewish community pic.twitter.com/sfBudPQGIC

— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) April 22, 2025

What is the meaning of Shmuley’s support for Parolin? This is not the first meeting he has had with the cardinal, as his visit in March 2024 shows.

As we work to get Papal recognition of Israel as God’s eternal
Promise to the Jewish people, I had my friend Amir Ohana, Speaker of the Knesset, to invite Vatican Sec. of State Cardinal Parolin to Israel pic.twitter.com/7nAPy1aHPY

— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) March 16, 2025

Shmuley was accompanied to the Vatican last month by the speaker of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

Amir Ohana was present with Shmuley to press the Holy See to recognize the Zionist State of Israel as “God’s eternal promise to the Jewish people” – which is a heretical position and contradicts Catholic doctrine.

Ohana told the Knesset in February that Jewish annexation of the Palestinian territories was the “one and only way” to secure peace, saying:

“These biblical, original parts of our land, which in the Bible tells the story of our people, are intended for us, for the people of Israel, need to be in the territory of the State of Israel, under the ownership of Israel, under full Israeli sovereignty.”

Shmuley, who describes himself as “America’s rabbi,” wrote in the Times of Israel on March 7 of his demand that the “Catholic Church should recognize Israel as the biblical inheritance of the Jews.”

Rabbi Schmuley, aka kosher dildo specialist, gets owned by Candace Owens after challenging her Christianity! Boteach got schooled, again!🚨 pic.twitter.com/KWLO6opTUe

— Truth_teller 🇷🇺 (@Truthtellerftm) February 11, 2025

Shmuley’s demand for the Church to recognize the Holy Land as the “birthright of the Jewish people” contradicts Catholic teaching – a point Shmuley addresses himself in his report.

“Some might argue that the New Testament reinterprets the land promise spiritually, applying it to the Church as the ‘new Israel.’” 

READ: The ‘Judeo-Christian’ lie is destroying the Christian West

Those people would be “Catholics” – as Shmuley well knows. He has a solution to this problem however – and it is casuistry:

“However, a close reading suggests continuity rather than replacement.”

To help Catholics recover from the traditional teachings of its own Church, Shmuley has authored a book – titled Kosher Jesus. He also refers to the jettisoning of Catholic doctrine following the Second Vatican Council as a foundation for the Judaization of our Christianity – and the claim of Zionists to the land of Christ.

Shmuley references a 1965 declaration of the conclusions of the Second Vatican Council issued under Pope Paul VI:

The document Nostra Aetate marked a turning point, rejecting the notion that Jews are collectively cursed and affirming their enduring covenant with God. Recognizing Israel as the eternal inheritance of the Jewish people would build on this, aligning Catholic theology with the plain sense of Scripture while respecting Jewish self-understanding.

Shmuley is saying the Catholic tradition is non-scriptural, and its further modernization would “counter historical supersessionism (the idea that the Church fully replaces Israel).”

In short, it would undermine completely the foundation of the Catholic Church as the expression of God’s will on earth.

Over a century ago, Pope St. Pius X met the founder of modern Zionism to hear his request that the Vatican endorse the Zionist project to establish a Jewish state in Ottoman Palestine.

In 1904, St. Pius X told Theodor Herzl, “We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem – but we could never sanction it.”

“The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.”

Saying the Jews had two possibilities – conversion and the recognition of Christ as the Messiah – or, referring to secular Zionists such as Herzl, going to Palestine with “no religion at all” –  Pius X added:

“The Jewish religion was the foundation of our own; but it was superseded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot concede it any further validity. The Jews, who ought to have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ, have not done so to this day.”

It would seem the Vatican is now faced with the same two possibilities as were presented to the founder of the Zionist movement.

READ: Why did the founder of Zionism support the genocide of Armenians?

How has a sex toy salesman come to enjoy such influence in the See of Peter?

Shmuley records how he personally petitioned Pope Francis, along with Parolin and the head of the Vatican’s global mission.

“During this trip, we have met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State and one of the most influential figures in the global Catholic Church, and Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s global Foreign Minister and similarly one of the Church’s most influential leaders.”

Shmuley was full of praise for them.

“Both men are possessed of the warmth, humility, scholarship and utter professionalism that is characteristic of the Vatican’s highest leadership.”

Shmuley added “with Pope Francis in the hospital,” he prayed for Francis, adding, “Additionally, our visit included efforts to influence Pope Francis himself as well pray his complete and speedy recovery.”

Shmuley explained, “I stated my case at the Vatican, urging the Holy Father to affirm Israel’s status as the eternal homeland of the Jewish people.”

This was not the first occasion on which he pressed this case.

“My previous meeting with Pope Francis in 2016 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, both arranged with Gary, afforded me experience in papal engagement.”

Shmuley also expanded on his role as a salesman for the policies of the State of Israel, giving context to his wider mission.

“These discussions come at a pivotal moment, as antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment rise globally. In 2012 I published bestselling book “Kosher Jesus” where I appealed to Christian moral authority to bolster Israel’s legitimacy on a world stage.”

Shmuley seeks not only to remove the basic claim of the truth of the Catholic Church, and to use this to promote the “legitimacy” of the Zionist state – but also to promote the cause of “Greater Israel” by making this expansionist project identical with “God’s plan” in the minds of Catholics worldwide.

This would be a major victory for expansionist Jewish supremacists such as finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has claimed the same divine legitimacy for the absorption of all the Palestinian territories as well as parts of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq.

READ: Israeli minister brags about disturbing plan of conquering the Middle East 

Shmuley’s April 22 post, showing him with a smiling Parolin, came on the same day that the X account of the State of Israel posted, then deleted, condolences on the death of Francis.

The retraction was accompanied by the publication of a “hit piece” on the late Francis, as was noted on X – condemning his remarks on Israel’s “cruelty” and “terrorism” towards the Palestinians.

The Jerusalem Post published a hitpiece against Pope Francis after his passing, and Israel’s official X account deleted a post honoring his life.

Pope Francis stood firmly against Israel’s war in Gaza, condemning it as “cruelty” and “terrorism” against the Palestinian people.… pic.twitter.com/Vju1tNyh77

— AF Post (@AFpost) April 21, 2025

Last year, the Israeli diaspora minister Amichai Chikli accused the Vatican of spreading “modern blood libels” against the Jewish people.

Shmuley concludes that Catholic teaching is false, and that the Bible clearly endorses the claim of the Jews to the Holy Land – and by extension – all the lands currently claimed by Zionist extremists:

“The Bible presents a consistent narrative: God promised the land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants as an eternal inheritance, a promise reaffirmed through Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets, and upheld in the New Testament as irrevocable. For the Catholic Church to recognize this would not only honor Scripture’s clear testimony but also affirm God’s fidelity to His covenant people.”

Remarkably, he even claims this would promote peace and understanding – instead of the blueprint for perpetual war it has produced in reality.

“In an age of reconciliation, such a step could bridge divides, proclaim the continuity of God’s plan, and bear witness to the truth that what God has spoken, He will fulfill – forever.”

Shmuley’s mission is to secure a conversion, and it would appear he has a thoroughly modern friend in Cardinal Parolin, who could indeed be elected our next pope.