Catholic Priest Admits Child Pornography Offences

Broken Rites
March 6, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/285

A senior priest at a prominent Australian Catholic school has admitted accessing and possessing child pornography.

Father Stanislaus John Hogan, 69, who has long been associated with Saint Ignatius College in Adelaide (plus prominent Catholic schools in Sydney and Melbourne), appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on 6 March 2014.

He pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to access child pornography and one aggravated count of possessing child pornography.

The offences happened at Athelstone (the Adelaide suburb where the St Ignatius College is located) between April 2012 and August 2013.

St Ignatius College is a school of the Catholic religious order of Jesuit priests (officially called "the Society of Jesus"), and Father Stanislaus Hogan, SJ, is a member of that order.

A St Ignatius school magazine, dated winter 2013, lists Hogan as the school’s rector. There is a similar listing in the mid-2013 edition of the annual Australian Catholic Directory.

Hogan’s identity was suppressed under South Australian law until now, but that order has automatically lapsed with his plea.

The magistrate remanded Hogan on continuing bail to face a judge in the Adelaide District Court for arraignment in April 2014.

In a statement to the media after the March hearing, St Ignatius College confirmed that Father Stan Hogan was a member of staff at the time when police arrested him in August 2013. The statement said that, after the arrest, Fr Hogan "was suspended from all duties at the college". Thus, according to the statement, the school is now describing Hogan as a "former" member of staff.

The college said that neither of Hogan's two charges was connected with anyone within the college, including past or present students.

A publication by the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide said Father Stanislaus Hogan was ordained in 1976 and also taught at schools in Victoria and New South Wales.

Broken Rites examined some old editions of the annual Australian Catholic Directory. For example, the 1979 edition listed Fr Stanislaus Hogan at St Ignatius College, Adelaide. The 1988 edition listed him at another Australian Jesuit school - St Aloysius College in Milsons Point, Sydney. The 1994 edition listed him at the Jesuits' Xavier College in Kew, Melbourne, where he became the rector.