Let’s be clear. There is an element among Francis’ most dedicated promoters, channel their inner Rex Mottram and declare nearly every syllable that he utters to be oracular and under the inspiration of the Spirit. Some of them form an inner core, like a New catholic Red Guards, a la the Cultural Revolution, ready to pounce on any deviation from their received message and according to their orders from their cadres.
One of best/worst examples of this came almost a year ago from NcRG member Fr Thomas Rosica of Salt and Light. Recently, Rosica has been embroiled in a plagiarism scandal, which has revealed quite a few examples.
Anyway, Rosica, in July 2018, wrote… and meant it… that 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.”
Apart from it being highly weird, that was one of best/worst examples of sycophantic crawling you will find from that end of the spectrum. Truly exemplary.
And… it was plagiarized.
As a story at CNA notes, …
In April, it was discovered that one of Rosica’s most controversial publications, a July 2018 blog post, had been plagiarized from a 2014 blog post by by Richard Bennett, a former member of Dominican Order and an apparently laicized priest, who is now active in a fundamentalist Protestant organization which says it “places particular emphasis on the evangelization and conversion of Roman Catholics.”
What a source.
That same CNA story says that Rosica has resigned from Salt and Light.
I’ll turn on the comment moderation queue for this one.
