The word of the cardinal, copied from the Pope

A PERUVIAN cardinal has been dropped by his publishers after he was caught plagiarising the writing of popes.

Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, an ultraconservative Opus Dei minister, admitted copying chunks of text from popes Benedict XVI and Paul VI, but said he omitted to credit the authors “for brevity”.

“We should take it with a bit more spirit, be more sporting,” said the 71-yearold head of the Peruvian church, while apologising for any offence caused.

The disclosure of the cardinal’s plagiarism by Utero, a Peruvian satirical and investigative website, caused anger in the country.

“Cipriani will have to understand once and for all that the principles of the church, which govern only the faithful, are one thing – while the laws of the land, which all of us must obey, are quite another,” wrote Raul Leon, a commentator in the newspaper La

República. “Taking someone’s work and passing it off as your own is pure and simple plagiarism.”

On August 9, Cardinal Cipriani published a column in the paper entitled “A sense of spring in our history”.

“It was a really interesting column,” wrote Victor Caballero, a journalist at Utero. “So interesting that it seemed to me suspicious that our friend Cipriani could be the author of such excellent prose. So I decided to have a little look on Google, and found something rather surprising.” Large chunks of the text had been copied from Pope Benedict’s book Communio. Cardinal Cipriani had also passed off paragraphs of writing by Paul VI as his own.

Another newspaper, El Comercio, last week said that the cardinal would not be writing for it again.

Cardinal Cipriani has refused to be silenced. “Let’s not let this get out of hand,” he said. “You still have me on the radio, in the cathedral, and as a good friend to fight for the ideals of Christ.”