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CV NEWS FEED // In a lawsuit, Basilian priest Fr. Thomas Rosica, a former Vatican spokesman, has been accused of sexually abusing a priest before the Toronto 2002 World Youth Day, according to recent reports.
According to The Catholic Register, the lawsuit was filed against Fr. Rosica in March, and The Pillar first broke the news in an August 28 report.
Fr. Rosica’s priestly ministry faculties have been removed, pending the resolution of the allegation, The Register reported. The plaintiff, an unnamed priest from Canada who was ordained in the 1990s, alleges that Fr. Rosica sexually abused him after inviting him to help prepare for the 2002 World Youth Day. Fr. Rosica was the national director of the event.
“[Fr.] Rosica has denied any improper conduct,” according to The Register. The court has yet to rule on the allegation.
According to an August 29 press release from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Fr. Rosica is still conducting youth retreats.
According to The Register, Fr. Rosica became a Vatican spokesman in 2013 “and was a media advisor at two Synods of Bishops, in 2008 and 2018.”
Fr. Rosica, a member of the religious order the Congregation of St. Basil, founded Salt + Light Television in 2003. He was the CEO of Salt + Light until June 2019, when he resigned following reported accusations that he plagiarized in various writings and lectures, according to Catholic News Agency.
In April 2019, Joshua Hochschild and Michael Dougherty wrote an article in the National Post about the alleged plagiarism regarding Fr. Rosica. The authors wrote that “publishers have issued eight retractions for plagiarism in response to our work; 20 retraction requests are pending, under review by publishers, and we expect even more to follow.”
The accusations of plagiarism first appeared in February 2019, according to a 2019 article from the Catholic Register. Later that month, Fr. Rosica resigned from several positions, including one at the collegium at the University of St. Michael’s College, and from the boards of directors at St. John Fisher College and the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
According to the 2019 Catholic Register article, Fr. Rosica issued a statement assuming “full responsibility” about not giving proper credit to the appropriate sources.
“I realize that I was not prudent nor vigilant with several of the texts that have surfaced and I will be very vigilant with future texts and compositions. I take full responsibility for my lack of oversight and do not place the blame on anyone else but myself,” Fr. Rosica said.
He also said, “If there was an error on my part, it is that I have often relied on others who have generously helped me in my preparation of various texts and I did not do the necessary checking into sources, etc. I regret that. It was never wilfully done.”
