Rosica’s history of plagiarism
Before being exposed for serial plagiarism, Vatican spokesman Father Thomas rosica was perhaps best known for a controversial claim concerning Pope Francis. According to rosica, because Pope Francis is “free from disordered attachments,” the Church is for the first time “openly ruled by an individual” rather than by Scripture or tradition. Now we’ve found that those lines, too, were plagiarized.
Since mid-february of this year, we have been carefully examining for plagiarism the extensive published writings of rosica, the CEO of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and sometime media attaché of the Holy See Press Office. The goal of our investigation has been to obtain published statements of retraction for plagiarizing books and articles that have appeared in scholarly and journalistic venues under rosica’s name. Such statements of retraction mitigate the damage plagiarism inflicts on the scholarly and journalistic records.
When the first cases of plagiarism, in recent speeches and lectures, were discovered in February, rosica claimed it was unintentional, and suggested that his misuse of sources might have been due to sloppy research by interns. Our scrutiny of rosica’s literary output stretching back 30-plus years has revealed that his plagiarism is a long, consistent habit. So far almost everything rosica has published has been found to include substantial plagiarism — an astounding fact for a professional communicator — and to date publishers have issued eight retractions for plagiarism in response to our work; 20 retraction requests are pending, under review by publishers, and we expect even more to follow.
Most recently, we turned our attention to rosica’s July 2018 reflection on “The Ignatian Qualities of the Petrine Ministry of Pope Francis.” Circulated widely online, it generated considerable international attention especially for the following passage, intended as praise: “Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants, because he is ‘free from disordered attachments.’ Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.”
Critics of Francis took this as confirmation that Francis was a renegade and apostate; supporters of Francis were embarrassed at such a clumsy account of reform. When asked to comment specifically on rosica’s words, Cardinal raymond Burke responded, “This is nonsense.” And in response to all of this, rosica only tweeted that some of his critics should “go to confession.” He never defended
or further articulated his claim. Now we know why.
The controversial passage is lifted from a 2014 blog post by richard Bennett, a former Catholic, commenting on a video lecture by Fr. James Martin. Here is Bennett, quoting (and sarcastically interpreting) Martin: “Francis having completed the Spiritual exercises is now ‘detached,’ i.e., free from any ‘disordered attachments’ so that all his attachments or desires are supposedly ‘ordered toward God.’ In Pope Francis apprising himself to be, in the terminology of the Spiritual exercises, one of ‘Christ’s Captains,’ he now as pope is able to serve God according to the subjective dictates of his own darkened conscience. Therefore, it is not surprising, as Jesuit priest Martin points out, Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants — because he is ‘free from disordered attachments’ according to the subjectivity of his own mindset rather than worshipping and serving God according to the authority of Scripture. Clearly, the roman Catholic Church has entered a new phase: with the advent of its first Jesuit pope, it is obviously ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.”
Bennett’s words are formulated as a critique of Pope Francis (and of Martin and Ignatian spirituality). rosica removes the overt criticism, but still manages to use Bennett’s key assertions: Francis “breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants, because he is ‘free from disordered attachments’”; the Church “has entered a new phase”; and, most remarkably, “with the advent of its first Jesuit pope, it is … ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.”
We are surprised that this source hasn’t been identified before, and in retrospect the distinctive Protestant, anti-catholic tone of the critique should have been evident. What does it say that rosica would use such a source, and in this way? In general, what lessons of intellectual influence and theological disposition can we learn from rosica’s dishonest use of sources? In a separate, longer reflection, we plan to share more of what we have learned through close analysis of dozens of plagiarized texts.
For now, we report a simple mystery solved. While journalists and scholars have been exposing rosica’s plagiarism over the past several weeks, more than one observer asked whether rosica’s controversial lines about Pope Francis were his only original theological contribution. It turns out the answer is no.