Controversy is brewing at Benedictine College in Kansas, as at least one student faces a number of severe penalties, including a one-year suspension, for distributing a pamphlet under the name “Coalition of Catholics Against Jewish Supremacy.”
The pamphlets were shared on the school’s Atchison campus in protest of a conference hosted on April 23 entitled “Shoulder to Shoulder: Strengthening Jewish-Catholic Friendship in a Moment of Crisis.” The nearly day-long event was organized by the school along with the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism (CCAA).
The Dispatch
The director of the CCAA, Simone Rizkallah, launched the group in October of 2023 following the disproportionate Israeli response to the unjust incursion on their territory. Rizkallah was previously affiliated with the now-defunct Philos Project, an initiative with funding ties to Jewish billionaire and ardent Zionist, Paul Singer.
While the student’s zeal was laudable — it remains unclear if others were involved — the pamphlet contained several theological errors, including the question whether “a Jew can really be human?” The answer, of course, is in the affirmative, yet this error was compounded by the inclusion of false quotes.
As it stands, genuine opposition to the conference will likely be ignored, as faculty, panelists, and their sympathizers are fixating on the aforementioned errors to the exclusion of legitimate criticism.
Aside from Rizkallah, headliners at the gathering include notable Catholic Inc. figures such as Joe Heschmeyer, Dr. Lawrence Feingold, Gideon Lazar, and Yarden Zelivanksy. The latter three are Jewish converts to Catholicism and have each generated controversy — to a greater or lesser extent — for their positions on modern Judaism, Zionism, and the Church’s relationship to the Jews.
That said, Gideon Lazar, who participated in a panel discussion at the conference, recently offered a measured reflection on the event, albeit downplaying the enduring theological enmity between the Catholic Church and the Synagogue and the Jews losing their election.
To his credit, Lazar not only offered to speak with the students who criticized his views, but also advocated for a reduced punishment and privately expressed his dismay to a faculty member at Benedictine.
On Friday morning, Benedictine issued an official statement about the incident. They emphasized that, “Any student who is found to be involved in conduct that violates the Student Code of Conduct is subject to the college’s Student Disciplinary Procedures.”
Notably, the college exclusively cited the post-conciliar magisterium to maintain its position, citing John Paul II’s claim that Jews “[are] our ‘elder brothers in the faith.’”
This is an erroneous statement because faith is a supernatural virtue by which we assent to the truths of Divine Revelation as proposed by the Church, based on the Authority of God. 1 As such, Jews do not possess the virtue of faith.
Neither did John Paul II nor Benedictine mention that by being our older “brothers,” which is true in a certain sense, 2 comes with the implications found in the typology of Cain and Abel. 3
While details on the controversy are still needed, X user @Catholic_State has alleged that it is incorrect to imply, as the school has, that large numbers of students rose up to take down the pamphlets.
“A couple of students did take them down from the parking lot. But the majority of fliers were from the previous days in school buildings. These fliers were removed by faculty by order of the administration. Almost no students were involved in taking down these flyers,” he stated.
It remains to be seen whether the affected student will appeal to the president of Benedictine, Stephen D. Minnis, as was stipulated in the judgment.
- Cf. Catechism of Pope St. Pius X, On the Virtues and Vices, Q. 9. ↩︎
- Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer answered whether Christians have derived a great patrimony from the Jews (Acts of the Second Vatican Council, (1964), III-III, p. 161):
Christians, however, have received the patrimony which they have inherited from the ancient Jewish people, and not from the Jewish people of the present day. The Jewish people of the present day cannot be described as in all respects faithful to the revelation of the Old Testament, as they refuse to accept the Messias who was the cause of the entire Old Law. The Israelites of the present day are rather the successors of those whom St. Peter declares to have delivered Jesus to death and whom St. Paul declares that the justice of God has abandoned to have a hardened heart (Acts 3:13; 5:20; Romans 10:3; 11:7). Hence it does not seem right to speak in the same way concerning the Jews of old, who were faithful to God and the Messias to come, and concerning the Jews of the present time. From the former, the Church has received and faithfully kept her patrimony, while the Jews of the present day, on the contrary, impoverish that patrimony by their infidelity. For the same reason it also follows that dialogues with Jews should be introduced only with great caution, as the custom is – or at least always was – in the Church. Moreover the Council ought not to abandon this custom except under the influence of grave reason which ought to be explained to the faithful. ↩︎ - Pope Innocent III explained this typological significance during his reign (Migne Patrologia, CCXV, 1291): As Cain was a wanderer and an outcast, not to be killed by anyone but marked with the sign of fear on his forehead, so the Jews […] against whom the voice of the blood of Christ calls out […] although they are not to be killed they must always be dispersed as wanderers upon the face of the earth. ↩︎
