Experts map out US bishops’ ‘social networks’ that helped cover-up ex-cardinal McCarrick’s sex abuse
Sociologists have published a paper illustrating social networks between bishops in two national episcopal conferences and around the former cardinal Theodore McCarrick who was laicized over credible allegations of sexually abusing seminarians and priests.
“These show how a network-informed approach may help with the urgent task of understanding the ecclesiastical cultures in which sexual abuse occurs, and/or is enabled, ignored, and covered up.”
The study describes episcopal culture and presents three maps: relationships among bishops of the CBCEW, then among bishops of the USCCB, and finally of bishops to the disgraced former cardinal McCarrick.
The authors argue that an examination of relationships, social network analysis (SNA), gives insights into cultures where patronage, preferment and reciprocity are important.
They believe that, like the Italian mafia and the Chinese political elite, Catholic bishops share this kind of culture.
This is “intensified” by the fact that priests learn to be bishops “through a process of imitation and socialization” and this can lead to identifiable cliques of bishops bound together by ties of loyalty, similar behaviour, shared protégés, and a sense that if one member goes down, they will all go down.
Rising from post to high-profile post, McCarrick became recognized as a “kingmaker” for episcopal appointments in both the United States and Rome. “Serious allegations” about him were known by those “in the highest echelons of the hierarchy” but were merely “dismissed”, “ignored” or “paid-off” by his previous dioceses. McCarrick was simply that influential among bishops.
To map out the influence of bishops over one another, Bullivant and Sadewo collected information about which living bishops had served under each other as priests, auxiliary bishops, or in a high-trust diocesan position, like a bishop’s private secretary. The higher the number of bishops each bishop had served, or had once been served by, the greater his influence was determined to be.
Much Moar at link…
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/experts-map-out-us-bishops-social-networks-that-helped-cover-up-ex-cardinal-mccarricks-sex-abuse
The swamp swamp tentacles run deep
On a side note as to the similarities of the Catholic Church Lavender Mafia having a hierarchy similar to our government swamp:
In 2009, McCarrick presided over the graveside service of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery, where he read from a letter Kennedy had written to Pope Benedict XVI.[41][42][43] In 2015, he served as one of the concelebrants at the funeral of Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden,[44] the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden,[45] and delivered the closing Mass as well.[46]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_McCarrick