“The Road to Emmaus and the Road to Gaza,” published by Canadian priest Thomas Rosica in 1994, has been retracted by the journal Worship, a peer-reviewed academic journal that specializes in liturgical studies, because it contained sections written by six different theologians with no sources cited. It was not an isolated case. Michael Dougherty, a philosophy professor at Ohio Dominican University, analyzed 30 years of Rosica’s literary output and accused him of plagiarizing the works of other theologians, journalists, and even cardinals in dozens of lectures he has delivered and columns he has published in the media. “Our scrutiny has revealed that his plagiarism is a long, consistent habit,” Dougherty wrote in the Canadian newspaper the National Post. The priest has worked as an English-language spokesperson for the Vatican and directed a Catholic television network in Canada. He admitted to ethical failures, stopped writing papers, and resigned from the governing board of St. Michael’s College, a Catholic higher education institution affiliated with the University of Toronto. “I did not want my errors to cloud over the university governance and offer a bad example to students, educators, and staff,” he said in a statement. “We know that plagiarism is wrong. My actions were never deliberate. Nevertheless they were wrong.”
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