POPE BENEDICT XVI RESIGNING AS HEAD OF CATHOLIC CHURCH

English: Pope Benedict XVI during general audition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

UPDATED 4:34 AM PST

By Randy Economy

In a stunning announcement, Pope Benedict XVI will be resigning as the head of the Roman Catholic Church “because of advanced age,” he told the Cardinals of the Catholic Church on Monday.

Benedict is 85 and will turn 86 on April 16.

The last pope to resign was Gregory XII in 1415.

The announcement has caught Catholics around the world off guard.

In his resignation, Benedict said via Catholic Radio the following to the College of Cardnials:

“Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Benedict XVI (2005-present, Episcopal form of Papal arms) An alternate version with Papal Tiara: here (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”
From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

Here is more about the life and service of Pope Benedict XVI from the US Catholic Bishops Conference.

• April 16, 1927: Joseph Ratzinger born in Marktl Inn, Bavaria.
• 1939: Enters the minor seminary in Traunstein, Germany.
• 1943: At the age of 16, he and members of his seminary class are drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps.
• 1945: Deserts the army and returns to Traunstein. He is briefly held by American forces in a prisoner of war camp. After his release, he re-enters the seminary.
• 1951: Ordained into the priesthood by Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich.
• 1953: Receives his doctorate in theology from the University of Munich with a thesis entitled “The People and House of God in St. Augistine’s Doctrine of the Church.”
• 1959: Begins lecturing as a professor of fundamental theology at the University of Bonn.
• 1962-1965: Participates in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council as theological adviser to Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne, Germany.
• 1972: Becomes one of the co-founders of Catholic theology journal Communio.
• 1977: Named Archbishop of Munich and Freising in March and elevated to Cardinal of Munich in June by Pope Paul VI.
• 1981: Named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope John Paul II.
• 1998: Named Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals.
• 2002: Elected Dean of the College of Cardinals.
• April 19, 2005: Cardinal Ratzinger elected as the 265th pope and chooses the name Pope Benedict XVI.
• February 11, 2013: Pope Benedict XVI announces resignation due to “advanced age.”

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An Exploration Of All Brighton Campus Has To Offer

There is a special yet little-known place you can go within the Boston College campus if you are up for a little walk and a change of scenery. Walk past White Mountain and Flatbreads, and continue on for about half a mile until you begin to see large buildings and friendly faces. Welcome to Brighton Campus, a 65-acre haven for theology and ministry graduate students, alumni, BC dance group members, and anyone looking for some peace of mind. First, let’s establish that Brighton Campus serves a wide range of students with different interests and needs. Some major buildings and resources on Brighton Campus include the School of Theology and Ministry, the Theology and Ministry Library, the Cadigan Alumni Center, the Brighton Dance Studio, and the Human Resources Department.

According to Angela Siegel, STM ’14, the STM is bustling with passionate students who are working toward a Masters and Ph.D. in theology and ministry. The STM has “an incredible group of professors and staff who are dedicated to their research and their students,” she said. The STM serves a diverse body of students who range in age from their early 20s to 70s, come from locations all around the world, and are in different stages of their journey of faith. Nearby, the Theology and Ministry Library holds an impressive 250,000-volume collection that is especially strong in biblical studies, Catholic theology and history, canon law, and Jesuitica. Even non-STM, undergraduate students can access and request philosophy and theology-related books from the Theology and Ministry Library through the O’Neill Library.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the Cadigan Alumni Center, fondly known as “home away from home” by the multitude of BC alumni, parents, and friends. The center hosts frequent volunteer meetings, seminars, and events for alumni and parents who are always looking for ways to give back to the BC community. They participate in the BC Alumni National Day of Service, volunteer in The Boston College Fund and at the Boston College Neighborhood Center, and support the giving societies of BC. Siegel states the Alumni Center is not only there to serve the interests of the Alumni, but is also “open to helping seniors see how they can continue to be involved at BC after they graduate.”

Our next stop is the Brighton Dance Studio, which contains a basketball court-sized dance space, mirrors, a sound system, and ballet barres. Brooke Menard, a member of the Dance Organization of Boston College (DOBC), and AS ‘16, comments that though it would be more convenient if there were a dance studio on main campus, “The walk to Brighton is not that bad,  and the dance facility is great—we [dance group members] bond on the way over and bond on the way back,” she said. The studio is used by all BC dance groups for dance rehearsals, classes, and workshops. A special feature of the studio is that DOBC holds community classes for all BC students every week on Mondays  and Wednesdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Taught by different DOBC members, the classes help those who want to learn how to dance and those who want to improve their existing dance skills. Anyone can show up and dance.

Our last major stop is the Human Resources Department. The department offers valuable information and guidance to job applicants, new or existing employees, and even managers. The department posts available job positions online and informs applicants about the application, interview, and paperwork process. Students can come here with questions regarding pay checks, direct deposit, and federal work forms. The department also provides managers the resources and information to manage employee recruitment, documentation, and payment.

Though it seems like Brighton is all about work and no play, there are many things you can do to relax and have some fun. For those in need of spiritual grounding, mass is held every day at 12:15 in the STM Chapel (except Thursdays).

If you are looking for a bite to eat, you can walk down with friends to 129 Lake Street (where the Human Resources Department is) to find a small but fantastic dining hall called Cafe 129 that accepts BC meal plan money. The Action Station is especially delicious, with its daily changing cuisine options from tacos and noodles to soul food.

All in all, Brighton Campus is a wonderful place for STM students, alumni, dance group members, students with a lot of questions about employment, or just anyone looking to appreciate the large campus that is BC. Brighton is only a few minute walk or shuttle ride away, and offers a large variety of important services that help brighten the school.

Virtuous atheism is not enough

In Tuesday’s Telegraph Judith Woods drew attention to the most recent publication of philosopher and writer, Alain de Botton and his set of Ten Commandments for virtuous atheists. The aim of his manifesto is to “ignite a vital conversation around moral character to increase public interest in becoming more virtuous and connected as a society”.

His list goes: resilience, empathy, patience, sacrifice, politeness, humour, self-awareness, forgiveness, hope and confidence. It comprises an intriguing mixture. There are Christian virtues here: “Hope” is one of the supernatural virtues, along with faith and charity, while “forgiveness” and “sacrifice” are absolutely fundamental to Christian faith. English decency is reflected in resilience, patience, politeness, humour and confidence. And there are two staples of the therapy industry: empathy and self-awareness.

This list of secular commandments is easily understood as the self-help manual of a civilised and cultured atheist such as de Botton. Our national characteristics during the last war, according to the story exemplified by the slogan “Keep calm and carry on” rather than by the TV series Foyles’ War, certainly include humour, patience and resilience. “Self-awareness” is what is taught in psychotherapy: the idea is that if we all understood the roots of our quirky or anti-social behaviour we might become better people. Yet, as my parish priest pointed out the other week, it is possible, by paying qualified gurus a lot of money, to know just about everything about ourselves – but this in itself won’t help us to change (Father was contrasting this with the power of Christ to transform our lives.) “Empathy” is actually quite rare, as is true compassion, and often degenerates into Clintonesque maudlin sentimentality, as in “I feel your pain”.

“Forgiveness” for a Christian means loving your enemies, turning the other cheek to their insults and contempt (especially when they call you a “bigot”.) And “sacrifice” for Christians means rather more than de Botton’s opinion that “We won’t ever manage to raise a family, love someone else or save the planet if we don’t keep up the art of sacrifice.” “Sacrifice” could be described as an “art” in a rather Wildean sense, but really it means the death of the ego, dying to self, a lifelong struggle in which we will only emerge the victor with the help of supernatural grace.

I understand why de Botton is preoccupied with the concept of a virtuous atheist and I do not mock him; indeed I take his yearning to counter the supposedly superior claims of Christianity very seriously. It is a noble ideal and society would indeed be happier and more civilised if more irreligious people of the “Me-generation” were to reflect on his ideas. But just as that selfless quiet heroine of the Great War, Nurse Edith Cavell, realised that patriotism was not enough, so a noble and enlightened atheism, however fine its aspirations, is not enough if individuals or society are to be regenerated or renewed. The reason, as Catholic theology teaches us, is sin, original and personal, our own and Adam’s. We are not strong enough by ourselves to be good (as opposed to “nice”) without the grace of God. Politeness and resilience – indeed kindness and niceness – are not virtues in themselves; they are attractive characteristics of some people by nature; the rest of us have to fight against being “horrid”, like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead.

It is Pelagianism (and de Botton strikes me as something of a neo-Pelagian) to think we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and achieve virtue on our own. I reviewed de Botton’s book Religion for Atheists a couple of years ago. Brought up an atheist he wrote that he experienced “a crisis of faithlessness” in his mid-20s which set him on a quest to rescue “some of what is beautiful, touching and wise from all that no longer seems true.” During his research he attended a Catholic Mass and commented, “Not the ideal habitat for an atheist. Much of the dialogue is either offensive to reason or simply incomprehensible.”

The readings at Mass for today are inspirational – to a believer: in the letter to the Hebrews, with the opening exhortation “Continue to love each other like brothers, and remember always to welcome strangers, for by doing this, some people have entertained angels without knowing it”, we discover a mode of discourse utterly foreign to the sacred books of atheism. This passionate and intensely personal dialogue continues with the Psalm: “The Lord is my light and my help/whom shall I fear?” The Gospel text is the dramatic, deeply memorable passage in Mark’s Gospel which was to fire the imagination of Oscar Wilde, where the daughter of Herodias dances before Herod and then makes her appalling request.

My advice to de Botton is: leave aside your secular commandments and go back to a Catholic Mass, not for research purposes but as a genuine seeker after truth. Then who knows? You might entertain angels unawares.

Peacemaker In Residence hosted on campus

Continuing a six-year tradition, the Center for Peacemaking hosted Libby Hoffman, the founder and president of Catalyst for Peace, as the 2013 Peacemaker in Residence last week.

Hoffman’s organization specifically focuses on community-based outreach with regard to reconciliation. She spent the past few years in Sierra Leone working on bringing together communities that were directly impacted by the eleven-year civil war. 

Patrick Kennelly, associate director of the Center for Peacemaking, said the center was partially inspired to bring Hoffman here after hosting Sara Terry, a documentary director, last year. Terry directed and produced “Fambul Tok,” a movie about Hoffman’s work in Sierra Leone. During her time on campus, Terry screened the full documentary. Part of Hoffman’s presentation showed an epilogue to the movie.

Hoffman’s stay culminated with a presentation of her work in Sierra Leone, where the organization she co-founded, Fambul Tok, helped rebuild communities torn apart by the 11-year civil war through more culturally traditional means. Hoffman said the attempts at setting up a more formal National Court left many citizens feeling they had no part in the justice system.

The organization, whose name translates to “Family Talk” in the native language of Sierra Leone, helps communities practice restorative justice and reconciliation through large communal campfires. The concept is based on a traditional form of reconciliation in the culture. At the campfires, victims and perpetrators who live in the same villages come together to reconcile, helping the communities move on from the violence.

The idea for the communal bonfires came from the fallout from other attempts at finding justice within the country after the war. Hoffman said those being investigated for various crimes were offered blanket amnesty, which gave no incentive for perpetrators to testify.

“Ordinary people had no access and no connection (to the system),” Hoffman said in her presentation.

Joining with John Caulker, who was already working on reconciliation in Sierra Leone, Hoffman helped inspire local communities to take part in their own ceremonies. This gave citizens a chance to ask for forgiveness from those whom they had injured and to be forgiven.

Ultimately, the bonfires were the first step on the road to communal healing.

“The bonfire is the beginning, not the end of the process,” Hoffman said. “The follow-up events go on for months, allowing the communities to cement the process.”

In her presentation, Hoffman discussed some of the core assumptions her organization brings into a community prior to engaging it in reconciliation techniques. The first and perhaps most significant is the idea that the answers must come from the community itself for any program to have success.

Those who attended the presentation were impressed with Hoffman’s work.

Mary Rose Gietl, a senior in the College of Arts Sciences, said she enjoyed the presentation and found Hoffman inspirational.

“It was eye-opening,” Gietl said. “It’s a new way to approach justice.”

The mission of the Peacemaker in Residence is to help the Marquette community explore the power of non-violence and advance conversations about real-world solutions to troubling problems. For part of the week, residents spend time in classrooms talking to students interested in their fields of experience.

Kennelly said speakers normally have both a theoretical approach and some real-world experience.

“They use their knowledge and experience to help improve the world,” Kennelly said. “They help create communities that are easier for people to live in.”

Past residents include Jim Douglass, who applies Catholic theology to peacemaking in the United States, and Nomfundo Walaza, who works in South Africa and spoke about her work in reconciliation there.

Education minister stripped of doctoral title

The University of Dsseldorf has withdrawn the doctoral title of Annette Schavan, Germanys education and research minister, claiming that she lifted material for her thesis. While Schavan is seeking to contest the universitys verdict, the opposition in parliament has called for her resignation.

The University of Dsseldorf stripped Schavan of her PhD on 5 February. The council of the universitys faculty of philosophy had found that a considerable amount of texts written by other authors had been adopted word-for-word but had not been correspondingly referred to as citations, faculty dean Bruno Bleckmann explained.

The accumulation and structure of the text passages adopted and the omission of source titles in the footnotes and further reading list had convinced the faculty council that Schavan had systematically and willfully presented academic performance that she herself had, in reality, not delivered.

Bleckmann said that Schavans response could not weaken this impression, which is why, based on the facts before it, the faculty council has found that the issue concerned represents willful deceit through plagiarism.

The decision to withdraw the ministers title was approved by 12 of the councils 15 members.

Schavan, on a five-day tour of South Africa bringing her together with representatives of science, research, politics and business, commented on the new developments the following day. I will not accept the University of Dsseldorfs decision and intend to lodge a complaint, she said.

The minister now has four weeks to appeal to the administrative court.

Schavan recently stated that she could not rule out having made careless mistakes but denied plagiarism.

Her lawyers announced that they would be taking legal action because the faculty of philosophys decision was based on a faulty procedure and was disproportionate. Violations of citation rules were insignificant and could not justify the withdrawal of a doctoral title.

The universitys move leaves Schavan without any professional title. The minister, who studied catholic theology, philosophy and education science at Bonn and Dsseldorf, did her doctorate 32 years ago. During her studies, she bypassed the usual magister first degree in arts subjects and headed straight for her doctoral exams.

Responses

Politicians in the ruling Christian Democrat-Free Democrat coalition government have praised Schavans achievements as an education and research minister. Further developments are to be discussed on her return from South Africa.

There have been unanimous calls from the opposition for the minister to resign. Schavan now lacks credibility as a higher education minister, said the Social Democrats general secretary Andrea Nahles, while Petra Sitte, spokesperson for Die Linke the Left Party stressed that whoever is responsible for education and research had to set an example to others.

Bernhard Kempen, president of the Hochschulverband German Association of University Professors and Lecturers maintained that it could take months if not years for a court ruling to be reached. In these circumstances, Annette Schavan can no longer act as education minister.

Kempen, a qualified jurist, also refuted criticism regarding how the decision to withdraw Schavans title came to be. The University of Dsseldorfs verdict is not manifestly unlawful, he says. It is not discernible why the withdrawal of the title should be based on a faulty procedure.

Referring to the leaking of information indicating the possibility of plagiarism in Schavans thesis last year, Kempen commented that while indiscretion is unacceptable, it does not make the procedure as such defective.

However, he conceded that any withdrawal of an academic title also represented a set-back for universities. It is now up to institutions to take a closer look and exercise more control, he said. Higher education has to develop uniform regulations on academic conduct.

Having issued a statement in support of Schavan just days ahead of Dsseldorf University launching formal proceedings, the Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen, comprising Germanys chief higher education and research bodies, has kept quiet about the institutions verdict.

Membership of the Alliance includes funding bodies such as the German Research Foundation and research heavyweights like the Fraunhofer Society, the Helmholtz Association and the Max Planck Society. As Bonn academic law expert Wolfgang Lwer stressed, these organisations depend crucially on ministry funding.

The Schavan case may have damaged higher education as a whole in Germany, Lwer said.

German education minister loses Ph.D over plagiarised thesis

A university has stripped Germany’s education minister of her Ph.D., after a blogger caught the plagiarism and spent months vigilantly presenting the evidence to the public.

The institution, on Tuesday, said her doctoral thesis which dealt with “how we form our conscience, turns out she plagiarised chunks of it.”

Annette Schavan is the second minister in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet who has this embarrassing distinction.

Former defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg stepped down in May 2011, after large passages of his dissertation were found to have been directly copied from other sources.

At the time, Schavan sharply criticized Guttenberg publicly for his shortcomings, according to German media reports.

Since April 2012, the blog “schavanplag” (for “Schavan” and “plagiarism”) has compared passages of Schavan’s 1980 dissertation with sections of written works by other authors — in multiple instances they match word for word, or nearly.

The blog alleges Schavan did not properly source her work and claimed others’ work as her own.

Schavan, who studied education, philosophy and Catholic theology, received her doctorate with highest honors, including for the verbal section of her dissertation. She has spent her career in education roles in the Catholic church.

She denies wrongdoing and plans to sue the University of Dusseldorf for invalidating her degree, according to her lawyers.

She has been fighting the blog’s allegations in public for months and has given no signs of stepping down as education minister.

The board of the department that awarded her the degree said that there are just too many borrowed passages in her dissertation entitled: “People and Conscience studies on the foundations, necessity and challenges in forming a conscience in our time.”

The board found that she had “systematically and deliberately laid claim to intellectual achievements, which she in reality did not produce herself.”

THURSDAY HOMILY: He Still Sends Them out Two by Two. New Evangelization …

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) – On this Thursday we hear St Marks account of the sending of the Twelve on Mission: “Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick -no food, no sack, no money in their belts.”

“They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” (Mark 6:7-13)

He still sends us them two by two. We are them – the ones he sends in this hour. He still works His saving and redemptive mission in and through us, because we are members of His Mystical Body, the Church. Pope Benedict constantly reminds us that the Church exists to evangelize and that the nature of the Church is missionary.

The Catholic Church has always taught that every single human being on the face of the earth has a right to hear the liberating Gospel message of Jesus Christ as fully revealed in the heart of His Catholic Church. That will be accomplished in this hour by you and me, no matter what our state in life, or specific vocation. We are all baltized into Christ to participate in the saving mission of His Church.

However, in order to be able to engage such a missionary task, many Catholic Christians need to be renewed in their own Baptismal faith through a personal and trasnformative encounter with the Risen Lord. In addition, that encounter needs to be strengthened and secured by solid catechesis in living as a Catholic Christian. This is what is meant by the New Evangelization.

This New Evangelization invites each of us to live our baptismal vocation completely given over to the work of the Lord. It is meant to bring about an authentic renewal of the Church so that she can undertake a new missionary outreach to the whole world. Only a Church fully alive in the Lord and filled with His Spirit can carry out such an evangelical mission.

How many Catholics understand the implications of their own Baptism? How many know what the Church really teaches? How many truly experience the Church as a mother, or live in the Church as a communion? How many have come to perceive the Church as “Some – One” rather than some-thing?
However, it is precisely this kind of living faith which informs, inspires and fuels missionaries.

Is it supposed to only be the experience of the mystics, the talk of the Saints and Fathers? Or, is it supposed to be the truly common experience of every Christian? The answer is clear; it is supposed to be the common experience of all Christians. That includes you and me.

In Catholic theology we teach what the early fathers, Saints and Councils throughout the ages have all affirmed; to belong to Jesus is to belong to His Body, the Church. Our membership in the Church is a participation in the life of God; what the Apostle Peter referred to as a “participation in the Divine nature”. (2 Peter 1:4) Through our Baptism the Church becomes our home, the privileged place in which we live our lives in Christ. To perceive, receive and to live this requires continuing conversion.

In its treatment of the Church, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is “the world reconciled.” She is that bark which “in the full sail of the Lord’s cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world.” (CCC#845)

Because the Church is human and divine, her members still sin. Sometimes evil takes root in weak spots and rots her from within. However, the promise of Christ is reliable; “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16:18) To the Church has been entrusted the Sacraments and the Word, the gift of a teaching office and the very means of salvation for all men and women.

The Church is not an optional extra that we add to our lives, she is our life. We live in Christ for the sake of the world. From the Lord’s wounded side she was birthed at the tree of Calvary, the altar of the new world. She is the seed of the kingdom to come and makes that kingdom present in a world waiting to be reborn. 

I believe we are at the beginning of a great resurgence in the Catholic Church precisely for this new missionary age. Just when her opponents are ready to count the Catholic Church out, the sleeping giant is rising. Along with the needed purification of the Church, the seeds of a new springtime are beginning to sprout.

For example, the ecclesial movements are flourishing; new and renewed religious communities are growing and new and renewed Colleges and Universities, desirous of being fully and faithfully Catholic, are sending out missionaries into every segment of the fields which are ripe for harvest. There is a growing dynamically orthodox Catholic faith and life being manifested among the lay faithful.

The movement of our Anglican friends into full communion, the growing number of other Christians’ coming home to the full communion of the Catholic Church, the movement toward the healing of the division between East and West, are all signs of a resurgent Catholic Church at the dawn of a new missionary age. 

The Lord who birthed the Church from His wounded side on Golgotha’s Hill her and died for her is purifying her and renewing her by His Spirit to continue his redemptive work until he returns to bring it to completion. He has been raised from the dead and walks with our feet. This is the Dawn of a New Missionary Age. We are all missionaries. He still sends us out two by two and – equips us with all we need to continue His mission.

German education minister loses Ph.D. over plagiarized thesis

(CNN) — Her doctoral thesis dealt with how we form our conscience. Turns out she plagiarized chunks of it.

A university stripped Germany’s education minister of her Ph.D. on Tuesday, after a blogger caught the plagiarism and spent months vigilantly presenting the evidence to the public.

Annette Schavan is the second minister in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet who has this embarrassing distinction.

Former defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg stepped down in May 2011, after large passages of his dissertation were found to have been directly copied from other sources.

At the time, Schavan sharply criticized Guttenberg publicly for his shortcomings, according to German media reports.

Since April 2012, the blog “schavanplag” (for “Schavan” and “plagiarism”) has compared passages of Schavan’s 1980 dissertation with sections of written works by other authors — in multiple instances they match word for word, or nearly.

The blog alleges Schavan did not properly source her work and claimed others’ work as her own.

Schavan, who studied education, philosophy and Catholic theology, received her doctorate with highest honors, including for the verbal section of her dissertation. She has spent her career in education roles in the Catholic church.

She denies wrongdoing and plans to sue the University of Dusseldorf for invalidating her degree, according to her lawyers.

She has been fighting the blog’s allegations in public for months and has given no signs of stepping down as education minister.

The board of the department that awarded her the degree said that there are just too many borrowed passages in her dissertation entitled: “People and Conscience — studies on the foundations, necessity and challenges in forming a conscience in our time.”

The board found that she had “systematically and deliberately laid claim to intellectual achievements, which she in reality did not produce herself.”

German education minister loses Ph.D. over plagiarized thesis

(CNN) — Her doctoral thesis dealt with how we form our conscience. Turns out she plagiarized chunks of it.

A university stripped Germany’s education minister of her Ph.D. on Tuesday, after a blogger caught the plagiarism and spent months vigilantly presenting the evidence to the public.

Annette Schavan is the second minister in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet who has this embarrassing distinction.

Former defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg stepped down in May 2011, after large passages of his dissertation were found to have been directly copied from other sources.

At the time, Schavan sharply criticized Guttenberg publicly for his shortcomings, according to German media reports.

Since April 2012, the blog “schavanplag” (for “Schavan” and “plagiarism”) has compared passages of Schavan’s 1980 dissertation with sections of written works by other authors — in multiple instances they match word for word, or nearly.

The blog alleges Schavan did not properly source her work and claimed others’ work as her own.

Schavan, who studied education, philosophy and Catholic theology, received her doctorate with highest honors, including for the verbal section of her dissertation. She has spent her career in education roles in the Catholic church.

She denies wrongdoing and plans to sue the University of Dusseldorf for invalidating her degree, according to her lawyers.

She has been fighting the blog’s allegations in public for months and has given no signs of stepping down as education minister.

The board of the department that awarded her the degree said that there are just too many borrowed passages in her dissertation entitled: “People and Conscience — studies on the foundations, necessity and challenges in forming a conscience in our time.”

The board found that she had “systematically and deliberately laid claim to intellectual achievements, which she in reality did not produce herself.”

Rohr’s Living School: taking the loneliness out of the spiritual journey