Media Credit: JJ Prior, Executive Editor Sister Maria Philomena shows off a classroom at the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond Nov. 30. A planned benefit concert has created unrest among students, faculty and staff at Keene State College not because of its content, but because of the organization hosting it. “They practice a form of faith that is dismissive of other people,” said Campus Ministry Director Paul Cullity.

The group Cullity, a Protestant minister, is referring to is The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, N.H., about 13 miles south of Keene. The traditionalist Catholic organization plans to hold a concert, featuring fiddler Robin Warren and guitarist Brian Clancy of Spirit Fiddle, from 7-9:30 p.m. Saturday in the Alumni Recital Hall at the Redfern Arts Center.

Money raised from the concert will benefit the Immaculate Heart of Mary School, which is run the by organization. The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary has been the center of controversy in recent years in Richmond and surrounding communities because of publicity highlighting its alleged efforts to convert others to Catholicism and documented anti-Semitic remarks of some of its faithful.

“They have a philosophy that is based on wanting everyone in the United States to have the same religion and same way of thinking, and to me that means intolerance for diversity and difference,” said psychology professor Linda Baker, who is Jewish. In February 2004 The Boston Globe published an article about the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond including quotes from founder Doug Bersaw blaming Jews for Jesus Christ’s death.