A statue of St. Benedict is seen outside the Haverty Center at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., April 25, 2024, with St. Benedict Abbey in the background. The college issued a statement May 14, 2026, deploring antisemitism and affirming Church teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations, following pushback on a recent conference on Nostra Aetate. (OSV News/Megan Marley)
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A Catholic college in Kansas is deploring a campus-based antisemitic campaign, after hosting a recent conference exploring Church teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations.
In a May 14 statement, Benedictine College in Atchison disclosed that in late April its campus had been "repeatedly leafletted with anonymous flyers from a group calling itself 'Coalition of Catholics Against Jewish Supremacy.'"
The flyer slammed the college's hosting the 2026 "Nostra Aetate Beyond 60" conference in April, with the theme "Shoulder to Shoulder: Strengthening Jewish-Catholic Friendship at a Moment of Crisis."
Organized by the nonprofit Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism, the conference has previously been held at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and the Catholic Information Center in Washington. Past speakers have included papal biographer George Weigel, Princeton scholar Robert George and Catholic apologist Trent Horn, as Benedictine College noted in its statement.
The two-page flyer, copies of which have circulated online, called the conference "shameful," declaring that "Jews and Catholics do not worship the same God," and that "Jews exist purely and entirely in opposition to Christ."
The text also featured a smorgasbord of quotes from Scripture, the Fathers of the Church and popes — all provided without any context — criticizing Jews.
Such use of Catholic texts to justify antisemitism was called out by George in a March 25 webinar hosted by the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at St. Leo University, with George observing that "some of the attitudes expressed by the Church Fathers toward the Jews are bad." He said those "have been overcome" as the Church's "developed teaching" has sifted through human error, found at times even in the Fathers of the Church.
In addition, the flyer took aim at Benedictine College theology professor Matthew Ramage, who spoke at the April conference, accusing him of promoting "faulty reasoning" and adding, "Shame on all those antichrists who have participated in this conference."
A spokesperson for Benedictine College confirmed to OSV News that "students were involved" in the leaflet campaign, but declined to provide an exact number.
The students who posted the flyers had not received the required permission to do so, and had been given one-year suspensions, said the spokesperson.
Ramage — who told OSV News more than 200 had registered for the conference, with some 700 watching the livestream — said he believed he had been targeted in the flyer since his talk "most bluntly addressed the Catholic Church's official teaching" on Catholic-Jewish relations "from many angles."
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He added, "I made it really clear, which some people can't distinguish, that to be supportive of our brothers and elder brethren in the faith, the Jews, is not equivalent to endorsing the modern state of Israel."
Ramage read aloud to OSV News the statement he posted publicly, "My oath of fidelity as a theologian requires of me: to teach what the Catechism teaches about the Church's relationship with the Jewish people, which is distinct, for the record, from her relationship with the modern nation of Israel."
He warned that "the rise of antisemitism in our society right now is far worse than many realize, with some folks now openly deploying Nazi terminology to advance their agenda of demonizing Jewish people as a whole and gaining clicks."
In its statement, Benedictine College said it was "proud that our students took the initiative to remove these anonymous flyers from cars in campus parking lots, and we are also proud that our student groups were the first to respond to the attacks."
The college noted its student Latin Mass Society had released its own statement expressing "disgust and utter disappointment at the contents of the flyer," which the society stressed "does not reflect in any manner" its "positions, opinions, or sentiments."
The group said it "reaffirms its fidelity to the entire body of magisterial teaching," including Nostra Aetate, the 1965 Second Vatican Council document in which the Church declared its relation to non-Christian religions.
The text was the Catholic Church's first formal denunciation of "hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone," while affirming the "spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews."
"We abhor the manifest hatred expressed toward the Jewish people," the Latin Mass Society said in its response to the flyer. "The document denies their humanity wholesale and insinuates that a significant number of them foment revolution. Furthermore, it claims that simply to engage in dialogue with Jews is to aid and abet the Antichrist, a claim manifestly contrary to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council."
The society said it "not only disagrees with the conclusions of the flyer, but also finds its argumentation faulty and not reflective of true Catholic doctrine."
Among the errors the society identified were a misquotation of Pope Pius XII's 1943 encyclical Mystici Corpus Christi, and a "citation of the third chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the Philippians" that "betrays a telling lack of exegetical prowess."
The flyer (which included a misspelling of "imprimatur," the Latin term indicating Church permission for publication of a work) also called for prayer to a figure whose sainthood cult was suppressed by the Vatican in 1965 — Simon of Trent, a 2-year-old whose death in 1475 was historically used to promote the antisemitic "blood libel" charge that Jews sacrificially killed children. At least 12 Jews, tortured and executed following the child's death, were exonerated in a 1965 pastoral letter by Archbishop Alessandro Gottardi.
In a statement to OSV News, the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism said it was "deeply troubled" by the leaflet campaign, while saying the conference "demonstrates exactly why 'Shoulder to Shoulder' was planned in the first place, and why more conferences, formation, and serious education are urgently needed."
While "Gen Z is hungry for theological seriousness, moral clarity, beauty, and identity," said the organization, many young Catholics are "receiving the bulk of their so-called 'Catholic education' not from the Church," but instead from "the algorithm-driven world of online influencers, polemicists, and anonymous social media accounts."
Such sources are "where conspiracy theories, ideological extremism, and hostility toward the Jewish people are increasingly normalized and even masquerade as orthodox," the coalition noted.
Ramage told OSV News, "I'm proud to work at an institution that stands up for the teachings of the authentic magisterium of the Catholic Church and for the fundamental dignity of all human beings, no matter how unpopular it may be."
