An Open Letter to the Principals of Opus Dei Schools in Sydney
More than 30 alumni were involved in the Four Corners episode “Purity: An Education in Opus Dei”, investigating schools run by the Opus Dei-aligned Pared Foundation in Sydney. Opus Dei operates under a cloak of secrecy, and so in the interests of transparency and accountability, we are making public a letter we recently sent to the Principals of Tangara School and Redfield College, and to the Pared Board.
We refer to your recent request to meet with former Tangara and Redfield students. After careful consideration, we respectfully decline to meet with anyone from Pared at this time. We feel that such a meeting would risk re-traumatisation and would not be conducive to our ongoing healing from our experiences at the schools. Pared’s track record in dismissing reported concerns and enabling harmful teachings and behaviours, in addition to its recent actions, give us no reason to believe that any meeting would produce beneficial outcomes.
We are a group of concerned alumni from Pared schools who have shared our experiences with one another over the past several years. During this time, we gathered testimonies from many former students, parents, and numeraries, and observed a number of common concerns. Since the airing of the Four Corners episode, we have received many more testimonies from alumni voicing the same concerns. These span a period of almost 40 years, demonstrating a continuation of systemic issues from the foundations of the Pared schools through to the present day.
We were disheartened and disappointed by Pared’s letter dated 25 January 2023. We note that the letter, which was released before the Four Corners episode went to air, aimed to discredit the lived experiences of former students while repeatedly seeking to minimise and obfuscate the matters raised. Rather than engage with the allegations — severe enough to warrant a NESA investigation — Pared has falsely framed our concerns as an attack on the Catholic faith and political smear campaign.
Not once have Pared or the schools offered some apology, remorse or accountability for the suffering they have caused us — either publicly or privately. While claiming to be open to feedback of all kinds, in the days following the episode Pared schools systematically removed negative commentary from their social media and Google pages. If the schools are genuine in their interest to respond to feedback and prioritise student wellbeing, they will accept accountability and take steps to address the issues raised by former students.
The following is a brief summary of some of the more significant concerns voiced by alumni who have shared their stories with us:
Pared schools’ relationship with Opus Dei
Pared’s disingenuousness in the media regarding its affiliation with Opus Dei and its study centres is, frankly, shocking. The relationship between Pared schools and Opus Dei has been routinely misrepresented and minimised in public statements. For example, in speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald in October 2021, Opus Dei spokesperson Richard Vella claimed that:
“Opus Dei provide a chaplain… and that’s where the relationship ends”.
As the Opus Dei study centres are the place of residence for many teachers at Pared schools, there is a clear conflict of interest in encouraging and transporting students to attend after-school activities at Eremeran and Nairana. There is also a blatant lack of transparency about the fact that the school structure is designed to ensure that all students, by graduation, satisfy the minimum membership requirements of Opus Dei. Religion and Philosophy units are consistent with the requirement that prospective members undertake two years of philosophy and four years of religious education delivered by someone instructed in Opus Dei. The mentoring system is very obviously designed to this same end.
Both of these features and many others implemented in the schools’ structure and pedagogy are outlined explicitly in the Statutes of Opus Dei, and the denial of the integration between the prelature and Pared schools is completely dishonest. There is no consent involved at any point in this process, with students subjected to an aggressive and manipulative recruitment strategy they are not even aware they are participating in. We believe this dishonesty and lack of transparency is fundamentally coercive.
Non-curriculum subjects undermine curriculum materials
The schools offer their own mandatory Religion and Philosophy classes which are separate to the NSW curriculum. In these classes, former students report being taught materials of a deeply misleading, harmful, inaccurate and discriminatory nature, as outlined further below.
The information given to students in these subjects is often directly contradictory to those governed by the curriculum such as PDHPE, Science and History. This allows teachers to frame curriculum subjects as an inconvenient requirement while presenting alternative, false information as “truth” in non-curriculum subjects.
Insufficient and inaccurate sex education
The schools utterly fail in their duty to provide comprehensive sex education in line with NSW curriculum requirements. Students report a total emphasis on purity and abstinence, and a lack of instruction in sexual health or how to navigate healthy sexual relationships. During non-curriculum Religion classes, inaccurate information is frequently provided around contraceptives, including false claims that they are ineffective and cause infertility.
Additionally, students have reported the censoring of certain sections of curriculum textbooks related to sex and sexuality, which Pared admitted in their January letter. We also note that as recently as January 2023, Pared schools were posting on social media about their teachers’ and principals’ attendance at a conference for the instruction of abstinence to teenagers, and wilfully misrepresenting this as a holistic sex education program.
Victim-blaming and lack of consent education
Both Redfield and Tangara students point to a toxic culture of victim blaming where, in the total absence of consent education, women are held responsible for mitigating the sexual urges of men through “appropriate” behaviour and dress. As a result, female students express feelings of severe anguish and distress, low self-worth and negative self-beliefs lasting well into adulthood. Students report being encouraged by teachers to pass negative judgment on other women’s clothes and behaviour.
The failure to educate young people in the use of contraceptives and healthy sexual relationships is a complete abandonment of duty of care. A significant number of students shared their experiences with unplanned pregnancies and abusive relationships in early adulthood. In incidents of sexual or physical assault, there is a clear trend of survivors reverting to feelings of self-blame, denial or uncertainty. Past students consistently identify the lack of consent education in their formative schooling years as a critical foundation of safety and awareness that they were systemically denied in the Pared system.
In addition to these damaging impacts, Pared schools create an unsafe environment in which survivors of sexual and domestic abuse have no avenue to seek out appropriate support or empathy. Where survivors have disclosed sexual abuse to teachers, they report being shamed for engaging in pre-marital sex. These disclosures have not been passed on by teachers, despite mandatory reporting requirements.
Entrenched homophobia and transphobia
During non-curriculum classes, students report learning that homosexuality is a mortal sin which leads to eternal damnation, being described by various teachers as an “unnatural disorder”, “disability”, “mental illness” and in similar derogatory terms. In addition to homophobic language, there were reported instances of teachers and mentors promoting dangerous conversion therapy practices designed to alter the sexual practices and orientation of LGBTQI+ people.
This attitude among school staff cultivates a toxic culture of homophobia and transphobia among the student body, fostering an environment in which discrimination and bullying has been able to take place. Both Redfield and Tangara students who identify as queer, non-binary or trans report feeling unsafe at the schools, and many have experienced severe bullying or even physical assault on school grounds, with no disciplinary action resulting.
Bigotry and intolerance
In addition to attitudes expressed towards the LGBTQI+ community, students have described the Pared schools as teaching intolerance towards people of other faiths and beliefs. Common examples include teachers saying that non-Catholics go to hell in front of students from other religious backgrounds, speaking derisively of different belief systems and the actual endorsement of violence against other religions. In Religion class, students report being taught about other faiths only in the context that they are wrong, and for the stated purpose of arguing the superiority of Catholicism to people of different religions.
Glorification of self-harm
A number of alumni report being shown the cilice or discipline self-mortification devices by teacher and/or mentor members of Opus Dei. Many students recall violent stories shared by Opus Dei teaching staff which presented self-flagellation practices in a positive light. Students report hearing such stories from a very young age, in some cases as early as Year 2.
These actions serve to normalise and condone self-harm practices over the period of a child’s formative years, and pose a grave risk to student wellbeing and safety. Concerningly, a significant number of students reported engaging in self-harm during and/or after their school years.
A culture of silencing
Students report being routinely sent out of the room during class time for asking questions — in some cases, even being “banned” from speaking altogether. Many students describe being singled out by teachers, and sent to the principal’s office for disciplinary action when no misconduct had occurred. In some instances, students that were receiving fee relief or struggling academically report teachers using these disadvantages against them. Additionally, students from single or divorced parent households or who were born by IVF report being shamed by teachers in front of classmates.
Students report that bullying by teachers is public in nature, designed to isolate students from their peer groups and discourage the student’s classmates from associating with them (e.g. “This is the kind of person you are going to meet at university”). Students have also reported physical shaming (e.g. “fat”, “flabby”), derogatory language used for students with learning difficulties (e.g. “stupid”), and frequent threats of eternal damnation (e.g. “You’re going to hell”).
Former students also report the inappropriate use of social media by mentors and teachers to monitor their personal lives and receiving punishment for actions unrelated to their schooling.
Lack of mental health support
Pared schools do not have trained counsellors on site, leaving vulnerable students without access to adequate mental health support. Students express that mental health issues are treated as a spiritual failing by staff at the schools, with prayer being the only solution offered. Some report being actively discouraged from seeking professional support.
In one case where a Pared alumnus committed suicide, multiple students at the schools recalled being told by teachers that he was going to hell — some in the presence of the deceased’s siblings.
The mentoring system and recruitment into Opus Dei
The mentoring system operates in lieu of a qualified school counsellor, and yet there are no mechanisms in place to protect student privacy. Students report that information disclosed to mentors has been shared with parents or other teachers without their permission.
Additionally, some students have found evidence at the Eremeran and Nairana study centres to suggest that personal and confidential information is being passed on to Opus Dei numeraries for the purposes of recruitment.
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The above list is by no means exhaustive but gives an overview of the extremely harmful culture of Pared schools. Unfortunately, these schools have insufficient internal mechanisms for review. Students with complaints are directed to their mentors who, as discussed, are typically members of Opus Dei and deeply embedded within the system that has given rise to these issues in the first place.
In 2022, our group of alumni approached NESA who dismissed our complaints on the grounds that we needed to take them up with the schools themselves. However, as we have all experienced the negative repercussions of raising concerns with our mentors, teachers and principals while we attended the schools, we knew that this would prove fruitless. Sadly, Pared’s deplorable behaviour in these past few weeks has only confirmed this.
Our mission is to drive systemic change within the Pared schools so that current and future students are not forced to endure the same institutional abuse that so many of us are still healing from. For this reason, we saw it necessary to approach Four Corners with the singular objective of drawing attention to these issues.
We sincerely hope that Pared will finally choose to listen.
Regards,
Former Tangara and Redfield students who were involved with the Four Corners report & ABC investigation
On behalf of the many current students and alumni who have suffered at Pared schools.
