Bob Jones Reposts Mormon, Catholic 'Cult' Reference

COLUMBIA, S.C., March 16 (AP)--The president of Bob Jones University has reposted statements on the fundamentalist school's Web site calling Catholicism and Mormonism cults.

President Bob Jones III said Wednesday he wanted to show that nothing had changed about his views on Catholicism after it was reported earlier this week that the message in the ``President's Corner'' no longer referred to Catholicism and Mormonism as cults.

The statements had been removed when a new message from Jones in the school's quarterly magazine was updated on the Web site, the school said.

Reports about the removal, he told The Greenville News, were ``totally misleading'' because they implied the removal was ``for suspect reasons or because of embarrassment or cowardice.''

``In order to leave no doubt in anyone's mind of the university's integrity and absolute commitment to its biblical principles, the article in question has been reposted,'' Jones said.

The statements in which Jones had said, ``The diminution of evangelistic enterprise to cults which call themselves Christian, including Catholicism and Mormonism, is frightening,'' will remain on the Web page with the latest column ``as long as this present controversy exists,'' Jones said.

The language was cited repeatedly after Texas Gov. George W. Bush was criticized for speaking on campus Feb. 2. to bolster his Republican presidential campaign following a loss in New Hampshire to Arizona Sen. John McCain.

``Unfortunately they still treat Catholic bashing as an intramural sport,'' Patrick Scully, spokesman for the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said Wednesday.

Scully says Jones ``has an absolute right to teach this type of garbage, but we have the right to shine the light of truth on it.''

Mary Jeffcoat, spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, said she could not comment on the Bob Jones University debate because it has become a political issue.