Fr. Richard McBrien, MSM, Cleared of Plagiarism

Dom Bettinelli has the details:

Not that I didn’t see this coming, but the chairman of the Notre Dame theology department said Fr. Richard McBrien was not guilty of plagiarism. This came up last month when I posted some comparisons between a McBrien syndicated column and an Eileen McNamara column in the Boston Globe about the Menino-Catholic Charities affair. The Cardinal Newman Society took the ball and ran with it, filing a complaint with Notre Dame.

Of course, it’s no surprise that McBrien would be cleared, especially when you read the department chairman’s description of CNS:

[T]he complaint “was publicly lodged by the Cardinal Newman Society ... a militant right-wing Catholic interest group lobbying for the most stringent standards of orthodoxy to be used in courses and curricula at Catholic colleges and universities,” Cavadini wrote. The group, he said, had already “targeted Fr. McBrien as a dissident priest who should be required by the university to leave his teaching position.”

Gee, do you think the outcome was pre-ordained?

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
Someone needs to ask new Notre Dame President, Fr. John Jenkins, whether he agrees with the department chairman's assessment of the Cardinal Newman Society. If he's going to live up to all the good things we've heard about his leadership, then President Jenkins ought to order that an apology be given to the Cardinal Newman Society for the defamation they have endured.


Other Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Is Richard McBrien A Plagiarist?