Four male students at Benedictine College of Atchison, Kansas have been suspended from the school and campus for a year following a flyer they authored and distributed in response to an event the college hosted. The event was titled “Shoulder to Shoulder Conference: Strengthening Jewish-Catholic Friendship at a Moment of Crisis.” Benedictine College is a private, Catholic liberal arts college.
The letter distributed by the four students, reposted here by the Catholic commentator The Catholic State who seems to be the first to report this story, was not in protest of the event itself, but of several apparent theological errors made during the event. A video of the conference was made available to the public via the school’s YouTube page.
The Catholic State had already published a video describing 12 specific theological errors made by various speakers during the conference and grouped them into three categories: statements that contradicts defined dogma (a formal Council, Creed, or dogmatic definition); theological errors that are “contrary to the unanimous patristic/scholastic tradition or near-heresy;” and statements that were generally ambiguous or misleading. Statements in the last category were not necessarily heretical, according to The Catholic State, but could create “serious confusion.”
An example of one of the most serious statements contradicting defined dogma was when a speaker referred to the Torah as a “roadmap to heaven.”
The flyer which the students distributed touched on many of the same issues and cited Popes Gregory IX, St. Pius X, Pius XII, St. Barnabas, St. John Chrysostom, Peter the Venerable, and Scripture passages that reference the Jewish faith in relation to the Catholic Church.
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