Offer them a Catholic pamphlet as an exchange–you’ll take and read theirs IF they’ll take and read yours. Glance back after you leave to see if they pocket or throw away what you’ve given them. If they keep it, there’s little harm in keeping and reading yours, so long as you maintain faith and seek guidance directly from God AND His teaching authority on earth (the Catholic Church) for anything that you do not understand or find troublesome or confusing. It is good to know what others are saying, for if taken properly, it can advance the cause of evangelization.
Even better, if you’re up to it AND the person you’re passing it out to is a peer (someone of about the same age, not someone who is going to try to use age or position to create a teacher-student situation), you might offer a way of contacting you if they would like to discuss the pamphlet you give them further–like your school email address. Something safe to give out.
I would suggest talking with your local priest to get a local contact to direct other people to. Have your school email written on some of the pamphlets you keep handy (IF you’re confident and up to it), and this other local contact info on the other pamphlets. Just keeping 1 of each handy would probably be plenty
I would suggest not taking anything unless you have something to give and they accept what you give. The Gideon NT w/Psalms and Proverbs is not Mormon. The Gideons are a Protestant/Pentecostal group that mainly publishes a version of the Bible and distributes it (in person and in hotel rooms) in an effort just to spread the Bible. It’s not a Catholic-authorized translation, but it’s not particularly troublesome.
I still keep the Gideon NT w/Psalms and Proverbs that I received in similar fashion in college. It’s in my car, and my wife and I read a Proverb every day on the way to work. It was a free way to get a handy, pocket-sized text to keep around, and I don’t think the Gideons would begrudge our acceptance of it because we do use it to continue our study of the Word–still within a Catholic context, of course.
Oh, and you probably don’t need to go to the local cathedral. Most Catholic churches of decent size have good pamphlets you could use. If you talk to the pastor, you can probably arrange a continuing supply for you to have ready to exchange on campus. You’d be using them for just the purpose intended when they’re put out on in the church entry, after all–to evangelize and catechize believers and non-believers alike. And your target audience (college students) are in particular need of this, so you’d be doing the Lord’s work, charged to all of us in the Great Commission. God bless your efforts!
Otherwise, I say “no thank you, I’m Catholic, the original Church”. And she says “this will do nicely for the pagan sacrifice tonight”. No wonder why they aren’t coming around anymore.