Catholic Church paedophile networks to be mapped 'like organised crime' by academics

By Giselle Wakatama
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
February 04, 2021

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/paedophiles-mapped-like-organised-crime/13122320

The role of women, nuns and seminaries in paedophile networks are also being mapped. Photo by Daniel Munoz

Jodi Death is a criminologist leading the mapping project.

Researchers say in Victoria they found there were clusters of abusers who ended up clustered together.

Bob O'Toole was sexually assaulted by a Newcastle Marist brother. Photo by Dan Cox

Abuse survivors briefed in Newcastle about the paedophile mapping project. Photo by Giselle Wakatama

Survivor Scott Hallett has applauded the mapping project. Photo by Mark Reddie

A "mafia-like" code of silence among "dark networks" within the Catholic Church has begun to emerge from a world-first project mapping clerical paedophile networks, says an academic behind the project.

The project is led by Newcastle sociologist Kathleen McPhillips and criminologist Jodi Death (pronounced Deeth) from Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) law faculty.

The research builds on work done by Sally Muytjens, one of Dr Death's doctoral students, who mapped Catholic paedophile networks in Victoria.

The mapping will now include other hotspots such as Newcastle and the role of women in the church, nuns and seminaries.

The Victorian project identified 99 clergy members as abusers linked to 16 paedophile networks in the Melbourne and Ballarat dioceses.

It found there was a "mafia-like" code of silence among clergy perpetrators who formed dark networks (DNs) within the Victorian Catholic Church.

"Examples of DNs include terrorist organisations, youth gangs, drug-trafficking rings, price-fixing cartels, and other criminal enterprises."

Abuse at the hands of paedophile clerical networks in the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese is now on the radar of the researchers.

They have been briefed by about 50 abuse survivors and family members associated with the Clergy Abuse Network (CAN).

"There is enormous enthusiasm for the project because a lot of the survivors are convinced that there were, and probably are, networks of paedophiles," said CAN founder and survivor Bob O'Toole.

Dr Death said the survivors were invaluable as they held so much information about what happened and how it happened.

Dr McPhillips said it was a world-first project.

"We are using documents, but for the very first time we are using the oral histories of survivors to map these paedophile networks across the Catholic Church, so the potential is enormous."

Dr Death said every survivor likely held information they may not be aware was important in a larger map.

"The end result is we want a map that tells us about all the connections," she said.

"We would like to know if that's the case across the country and, in the long-term, around the world — we would like a world map."

Women in the Church will be examined as part of the mapping process.

"We know it's coming from nuns and lay teachers," Dr Death said.

"They are really understudied, and nuns were also vulnerable as victims themselves.

"We need to map and unpack that issue."

Seminaries, colleges where priests where received training, were also deemed a lure for paedophiles, Dr Death said.

"Seminaries were places where people would make connections," she said.

"There is also evidence of clergy taking young boys back to a seminary to be abused by other seminarians."

Clerical abuse survivors have backed the project, with dozens telling the ABC they will share their stories.

Scott Hallett was abused by Vincent Ryan, who was banned from priestly duties after abusing more than 30 boys.

He said it sickened him to think paedophiles were shuffled around.

Gerard McDonald was abused by the same priest and welcomed the mapping project.

"It is about time. People need to realise that it has been happening for too long and it is time people stood up," he said.

British child migrant Mick Kenny was six in the 1950s when he was placed in a Newcastle children's home.

He said the mapping project would be confronting, but well worth it.

Geoffrey Nash's brother Andrew is the youngest known clerical abuse suicide victim in Australia.

Andrew Nash died in 1974 aged 13 and Geoffrey said the mapping project was a painful but positive step.

Australia's first dedicated police strikeforce into Catholic clergy abuse was set up in the Hunter Valley in 2007.

Strikeforce Georgiana netted 19 offenders who were convicted of more than 600 offences, relating to 182 victims.

Researchers have not put a timeline on the mapping project but say once finished in Australia they intend to move their research offshore.