Dark Networks and the Catholic Church

• In Event: Institutional and Specialized Sexual Abuse Issues

Abstract

Child sexual abuse networks within the Catholic Church have been acknowledged informally and stringently denied by the Catholic Church but has not been explored on an academic level. Media refers to ‘paedophile networks’ in Catholic institutions but this has not been verified. A large body of literature acknowledges that child sexual abuse by priests and other Catholic personnel involves a close network of supervisors who have moved offenders from parish to parish and often end up in the same parish. There is some evidence that this has resulted in clusters of paedophiles operating in particular parishes. One example of clustering of child sex offenders within St Alpius Primary School (St Alpius), Ballarat. In 1971, four of the male personnel at St Alipius, were child sex offenders. Utilising the social networking tool Visualsys, this paper draws on media reports and data produced through public inquiry in Australia to map potential pedophile networks that have functioned historically in the Roman Catholic Church of Australia. Social Networking Theory is applied to explore the significance of mapped networks.

Authors

• Jodi Death, Queensland University of Technology

• Sally Muytjens, Queensland University of Technology