Child-porn priest retires but gets church accommodation

Broken Rites
July 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. Now, in July 2014, a church spokesman has announced that this priest will retire from active ministry. However, the church will continue to give him regular financial support and accommodation.

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. He is still waiting to be sentenced.

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.

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

In a statement to the media after the March 2014 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.

In a letter to parents and guardians of students at the Adelaide college, the head of the Jesuits in Australia (Father Stephen Curtin) said that Hogan had asked to be released from his priestly ministry. He would cease to be a Jesuit and would not work as a priest again. Father Curtin said that the Jesuits would “continue to provide support for (Hogan’s) welfare into the future”.

When questioned by a reporter from the Adelaide Advertiser, Fr Curtin said that Hogan would “live in retirement as a layman in a Jesuit community in Australia”. The Jesuit Order would provide him with "board and lodging, plus reasonable cost-of-living expenses."

[Broken Rites understands that, in addition to receiving such accommodation and cost-of-living expenses, retired Catholic priests commonly also expect to receive the Commonwealth age pension.]