Edinburgh, Scotland, Jan 15, 2020 / 02:15 pm (CNA).- A Scottish bishop accused of committing plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation told CNA that while he never intentionally committed any act of plagiarism, he will accept whatever consequences might come from the accusation.
“I can categorically state that there was absolutely never any intention to plagiarise any work,” Bishop Stephen Robson of Dunkeld, Scotland, told CNA January 14th.
The bishop’s remarks came in response to a 2019 article in the scholarly journal Analecta Cisterciensia, written by the journal’s editor, Fr. Alkuin Schachenmayr, a Cistercian priest living in an Austrian monastery.
The article claimed that “there seem to be dozens of passages in Robson’s dissertation which are apparently identical or remarkably similar to texts published by other scholars, yet the author does not attribute these sources.”
“My work was checked every stage by Father Herbert Alphonso SJ my supervisor, now deceased. I repeat, whatever the person you mention has claimed, there was never any intention to deceive or plagiarise. I was simply trying to understand St Bernard a bit better,” Robson said.
Robson completed his dissertation, “With the Spirit and Power of Elijah (Lk 1,17). The Prophetic-Reforming Spirituality of Bernard of Clairvaux as Evidenced Particularly in his Letters,” at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University in 2003.
The text was awarded the university’s 2004 Premio Bellarmino, the annual prize given to the best dissertation completed at the university.
“One must ask whether the jury responsible for awards of excellence at the Gregorian succeeded in identifying one of the institution’s best dissertations of 2003,” Schachenmayr wrote.
Robson’s dissertation was also published as a 2004 book by the Gregorian University’s publishing house.
And while Robson insisted that he had no intention to plagiarize, he told CNA that he will accept the judgment of his alma mater regarding his dissertation.
“I am happy for the Gregorian to nullify my text if they think fit,” the bishop said.
Schachenmayr’s study noted that Robbson’s dissertation contained several passages identical or nearly identical to already published scholarship. Those passages give no indication of their source material.
Among the scholars from whom Robson apparently copied are Bruno Scott James, Jean Leclercq, Friedrich Kempf, and Robert Bartlett, according to Schachenmayr.
Some of those scholars were mentioned as sources in his dissertation, even while particular verbatim passages from them were reproduced without citation. In other cases, identical or nearly identical passages from published scholars who were never referenced as sources at all were included in the dissertation, Schachenmayr showed.
Schachenmayr also suggested that Robson might have used a plagiaristic technique called the “pawn sacrifice,” in order to avoid detection of plagiarism.
“Citing some sources with apparently great vigilance can be used as a way of distracting the reader from the fact that other passages are not properly cited,” Schachenmayr explained.
Regarding the scholars from whom Schachenmayr reports he seems to have plagiarized, Robson told CNA: “I recognise some of the authors you have quoted and did quote from them.”
Still, he said, “the authors cited can only have been a minor part of what work I did as far as I can remember.”
Robson told CNA that he completed his studies- a doctorate in sacred theology as well as a licentiate in canon law- while he was serving as a spiritual director for seminarians at the Pontifical Scots College, where he was assigned from 1998 to 2006.
He studied during that time “to prevent myself going mad,” the bishop said.
“I have never claimed to be an academic and have not touched any study – I have not had time – since I came home,” he added.
“The studies were never really important to me – simply a means to spending what would have been otherwise an uncomfortable few years in the heat of Rome.”
“My directees were the much more important part of my work,” the bishop added.
Robson is a convert to Catholicism; he became a Catholic in his late teens. The bishop was ordained a priest in 1979, and worked in pastoral ministry, and as secretary to the eventually disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who resigned from the rights and duties of a cardinal in 2015 amid allegations of predatory sexual behavior toward priests and seminarians.
Robson was assigned to the Scottish seminary in Rome in 1998.
He told CNA he “had no desire to become a bishop…and yet was appointed in 2012 as an auxiliary bishop and as an Ordinary since 2013.”
After two years as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, Robson became Bishop of Dunkeld in January 2014.
The bishop served from 2013-2015 as a member of the McLellan Commission, which studied the Catholic Church in Scotland’s handling of clerical sexual abuse claims and the culture that allowed abuse to occur.
Priests who know Robson described him to CNA as a supporter of his priests, “a Catholic, and a believer.”
The bishop is regarded as an outspoken pro-life advocate and an advocate for Catholic education. In 2019, the bishop launched in his diocese a “Year of Re-Evangelisation” and a formation program for catechists.
That initiative, he said, was inspired by Pope Francis.
“His vision of missionary discipleship is something that really struck me but more than that his manner was so open, especially about making our parishes places of missionary disciples. All we can do now is try,” Robson told the Scottish Catholic Observer in January 2019.
At the bishop’s installation Mass in 2014, he told Catholics that “to build up communion in love means concentrated work, and that can be only done with time and many, many hands to help that.”
“Pastoral work, the work of a shepherd, involves being able to serve the people,” he said.
In addition to leaving a decision about his dissertation in the hands of the Gregorian University, Robson said he will accept any other consequences that might come from the allegation of plagiarism.
“I am sure Francis has far more worrying things to fret about than me. But if he wants my resignation, he may have it freely,” the bishop said.
[…]
It might be helpful to have more specifics from the Cardinal.
This court jester, who has outlasted his shelf life, has been specific in the past…
With the mentality of a careerist amoeba, he can’t tell the difference between a distinct “synod of Bishops” within the Apostolic Succession, and a broader and distinctly different “ecclesial assembly”—as in communio.
Sexually, he channels his own pontifications, thusly: “I think that’s wrong. But I also believe that we are thinking ahead here in [terms of] teaching. As the Pope has expressed in the past, this can lead to a change in doctrine. Because I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct.” https://www.newwaysministry.org/2022/02/04/leading-cardinal-in-synod-seeks-change-in-church-teachings-on-homosexuality/
The “sociological and scientific foundation”? This forwardist and clericalist-extraordinaire can’t tell the difference between the front and the back!
SUMMARY: the red-hat cardinal fails the red-face test. Don’t let your son or daughter near this self-referential man, or whatever.
“SJ” might be a useful clarification.
On another site, there used to a poster who went by the pseudonym “Art Deco” who used to say that parts of the Jesuit order ran on “single malt scotch and sodomy”.
Jimmy Martin has given us the Jesuit view.
It’s time for the final suppression of the Jesuits.
Well, obviously Cardinal Hollerich is far more spiritually advanced than St. Paul and St. John — and, yes, Jesus.
Let’s face it. The purpose of marriage is to assure individuals of an uninterrupted supply of easily accessible orgasms.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Any association with reproduction is strictly incidental.
Leave it to those brilliant Jesuiticals to figure everything out for all of us.
“Some look to the past with nostalgia, others with fear. Both are wrong. We are part of a history — this we must accept and learn from. But we must also move forward.”
Well, he’s right about one thing. We must learn to highten awareness of how stupid progressives are. He even has gone so far, as Francis did, to insist that a fallible God is in need to “learn from history.”
Yet to an actual honest mind, history reveals that not only does truth never change, because it all comes from an infallible perfect God, but neither does foolhardy human pride that refuses to recognize that truth never changes ever change. God has not been on vacation through the pages of history. Also notice that halfwits who cite science in support of their stupidity can never name the “science.”
Neither can they name exactly what happens in that magical land of “forward.”
Unbelievable. May God help the Church led by such popes and bishops. They go against Holy Scripture and the best thinkers of the Church:
Romans 1:26-27
New International Version
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
New International Version
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
AND SAINT AUGUSTINE
“Those sins which are against nature, like those of the men of Sodom, are in all times and places to be detested and punished. Even if all nations committed such sins, they should all alike be held guilty by God’s law” (Confessions 3.8).
Hear, hear!!! Scripture has spoken. Take heed.
Catholic morality is not narrow, insofar as it is part of a consistent whole that touches every aspect of life. What it is is sharp, sharper than any two-edged sword. Some things are always wrong, regardless of the number on the calendar or how popular these things might be with the media, the courts, or the voters. Or the seminaries.
I doubt he is really talking about narrowness, but if he is, he probably has a point. Just look at the mess that is the stance of current bishops on the death penalty. This is never about justice, because they wouldn’t win the argument that the death penalty is always unjust — that would, by the way, require them to say that God not merely permitted but COMMANDED something that is always unjust, which is something only a heretic could believe. They don’t even link it to the broader question of how secular leaders responsible for the public good in this life can reconcile justice and prudence with mercy and forgiveness. They instead make the claim that they are wiser and holier than all previous generations, which is why they can contradict their predecessors boldly. Such a claim lacks evidence, to put it mildly. But back to my main point: this is an example of a moral issue which would be better treated if it were treated within a broader context, rather than treated as a narrow exception.
Away with him.
A diabolical man.
Moron Hollerich’s “sociological and scientific foundation:” genome research does not support the fictions of Hollerich. Instead, https://news.yahoo.com/no-gay-gene-study-finds-180220669.html
A selection: “This means that non-genetic factors – such as environment, upbringing, personality, nurture – are far more significant in influencing a person’s choice of sexual partner, just as with most other personality, behavioral and physical human traits, the researchers said.
“The study – the largest of its kind – analyzed survey responses and performed analyses known as genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on data from more than 470,000 people who had given DNA samples and lifestyle information to the UK Biobank and to the U.S. genetics testing company 23andMeInc.”
SUMMARY: About the Hollerich alchemy, Galileo rolls over in this grave.
“Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, stated in a recent interview that he “would not define morality — especially sexual morality — as narrowly as the Church does today.””
Then he would be wrong, and it is to be hoped that many people tell him so, forcefully.
“SJ” ’nuff said.
One is left to wonder who this mortal actually thinks he is. The hot air emerging from him and his cohort is noxious. Their time is past. He need tug his head out of the 60’s.
I traded in my truck earlier this year for a newer model. I can “narrowly ” follow the owner’s manual for maintenance and operation or I can choose to ignore the rules and make up my own. But I know which choice will benefit the life and performance of my vehicle
It works in a similar way for Church teaching on marriage and family. We ignore the owner’s manual at our own peril.
This is yet another Jesuit who does not teach the Catholic faith.
Not unlike Senator Tim Kaine, a product of the Jesuit apostolate of the 70’s and 80’s who can’t figure out from whence derive our human rights.
Where do they cook up this stuff?
The hubris is toxic.
Kaine thinks he’s a theologian as well as a political philosopher just because he went along on some jesuit missionary trips. That, no doubt, is where his brainwashing took place. He also stikes me as an effeminate-sounding male.
May I, as a convert to Catholicism, ask why such a Cardinal is not being disciplined, re-educated, and/or even dismissed from his position in the Church? His words seem so harmful and contrary to Christian Church teachings and the Holy Scriptures.
Assault on Christ and the true faith should not be understood as primarily the work of one morally disordered man given the leadership role as Relator general for the Synod on Synodality.
Cdl Hollerich SJ is given privilege as the advocate for adult homosexual relations by a host of powerful, intermediary clergy. He represents the trend, now a virtual doctrine based first on widespread practice, particularly by homosexual, SSA oriented, the latent, the empathetic among our clerical ranks perhaps reaching the summit. This, based on the conviction that numbers prove viability. That somehow after thousands of millennia human nature has changed. That the dramatic explosion of coming out of the closet was a natural phenomenon mysteriously waiting for the 1960s.
We need keep in mind that the assumed anomaly of Hollerich could not exist unless he were empowered from above. Not the heavenly above. Our mission is to bravely, with due respect confront that authority.
Message to Eminence Hollerich, from a dear friend, who escaped from the torture chamber of the sodomy-lifestyle:
“It is insanity for adults like you to teach young people that it is OK for a man to inseminate the intestines of another person.”
In times of great challenge, the Church is called to be a beacon of clarity, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ with unwavering conviction. There is a profound need to articulate what is good and holy, and what stands in opposition to the truth revealed by God. The faithful yearn for their shepherds to speak with a voice that is strong and unequivocal, like a lion defending the flock.
A leader’s silence in matters of faith and morals are a source of confusion and disunity. The truth of Christ is a gift, and it requires a firm and clear witness. To remain silent when the integrity of the Church’s doctrine and Tradition is at stake risks giving the impression of tacit approval, or worse, indifference to the very teachings entrusted to us. The lukewarm approach to the deposit of faith can leave the faithful adrift, lacking the sure guidance they need to navigate a complex world. The Church must always be a guide to eternal happiness and joy for the world, never an echo of its passing fads. When shepards such as Cardinal Hollerich actively teach a false religion, there must be others such as Pope Leo XIV to firmly, clearly stand on a foundation of truth rather than remain quiet as a mouse.
I guess the cardinal might say that honesty is essential, but he would not define armed robbery as narrowly as the government does today.
It almost seems like our Pope doesn’t want to offend anyone. God help us! Sexual license is the devil’s ‘modern’ tool for destroying belief. Saint Paul, the Church of history and the most obvious experience of faithful ordinary people strengthen our belief and morals. Debauched cleric double talk and ambiguities must be exposed in the must explicit way. God has not abandoned our created human nature to the Devil. Souls are at stake.
Bernard,
I agree. It appears that Pope Leo doesn’t want to offend anyone including the lavender mafia within the hierarchy and the Vatican, the LBTG crowd, atheistic Communist China, et al. By his recent actions, and inaction, he has already undermined his pontificate.
Very disappointing. Yet I believe we need to continue to pray for him.
When can we stop hearing from this guy?
Someone should post a sign at the entrances to Luxembourg:
Caution: Malfunctioning Cardinal
muddying up the clear waters
That’s a perfect way of expressing it, knowall.
I’m back to the farming analogies again but it reminds me that per our extension service proper cattle management fences them away from streams. Otherwise they can muddy & foul the water supply flowing downstream.
If Hollerich hopes to define a “more modern” church as one with only liberal sexual morality, he will soon find that church broke and with no folks in the pews.Most of us have been there and done that, and are not interesting in a repeat.
The “let it all hang out” and “do what feels good” crowd are not church-goers. Maybe someone should tell Hollerich that his brand of Christianity is not wanted.
As for the new Pope, I had high hopes for him. But his appointments have been gravely disappointing.
Jesuits should not be bishops.