Bishop Steals a Sermon

In the previous entry, I alluded to dodgy practices by the main parties of the Highgate Vampire Case. One of them is plagiarism, and the following dissection will show you how ludicrous it can get.

To commemorate the Feast of St. Bonaventure (July 15), the Bishop decided to write a sermon on his blog, The Truth Shall Set You Free. Here's a snippet:

For some, it is not easy to be one's true self. We would like to be our true self. However, many of us, and we won't admit it, wear a mask and act contrary to the way God would have us act due to weakness and sin.

Hmm, yes, wise words indeed. It's just a shame that nowhere in the blog entry does he reveal a sense of irony or the source of "his" sermon. There's no references, no citations and his name appears as its author.

See what I mean.

How do I know it came from somewhere else? Simple. We know the Bishop has a history of plagiarism (and getting nasty when it's exposed). Also, all you have to do is Google a few lines of his "sermon" to see it where it came from. That's how I turned up Doctors of the Catholic Church's "St. Bonaventure" page. Here's an extract:

For some, it is not easy to be one's true self. We would like to be our true self. However, many of us, and we won't admit it, wear a mask and act contrary to the way God would have us act due to weakness and sin.

Sound familiar? Thought so. How about we do another comparison, just to make sure it's not a fluke. Here's another snippet from the Bishop's sermon:

Our Franciscan doctor encouraged others in his lifetime and encourages us today to have a sincere spirit of humility, devotion and repentance. We need to practice these God-given qualities. Humility is a part of truth. Sound devotion is the earnest searching after God. Contrition, conversion and repentance means sorrow for past sins. We have committed egregious wrongs and have need of God's mercy.

And over to Doctors of the Catholic Church:

Our Franciscan doctor encouraged others in his lifetime and encourages us today to have a sincere spirit of humility, devotion and repentance. We need to practice these God-given qualities. Humility is a part of truth. Sound devotion is the earnest searching after God. Contrition, conversion and repentance means sorrow for past sins. We have committed egregious wrongs and have need of God's mercy.

A real shame that the Bishop doesn't practice what he preaches/pinches from elsewhere. I would've liked to point out where "his" sermon significantly departs from the source he stole it from, but as you can see, that's kinda pointless.

Maybe the Bishop was too busy to write his own sermon that day? After all, it was his 66th birthday! Happy birthday, Bishop!

Extract from International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004 (2003), p. 366.

Not that it's an excuse, mind you. I mean, in the time it took to crib all that text from the Doctors of the Catholic Church website, he could've just linked to it. Doesn't take long. Could've at least prefaced it with "Can't be bothered writing my own sermon, today. Got me some partyin' to do! So, here's someone else's and Happy Bonaventure Day to y'all! TTYL!"

But it does make me wonder: if the Bishop can't even be bothered writing his own sermons online, then does he steal sermons from others for his Sunday services, too? Do his parishioners know their eminent leader is a shameless plagiarist?