THE SUBJECT POSITION OF "ABUSIVE PRIEST" AS AN OBJECT OF JOURNALISTIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

The sexual abuse of children and adolescents involving Catholic priests is often reported by the media, and this practice reveals its functioning in the power-knowledge games that discourse episodes of violence. Drawing on the theoretical and methodological framework of Foucauldian Discourse Studies, particularly the conceptual terms subject, power, enunciation, and dispositif, this article analyzes how the subject position "abusive priest" is discursively manifested in news discourse that objectifies this individual. To this end, the analytical excerpt selected consists of articles published by Revista Veja, based on which an archeogenealogical description was conducted that allowed us to understand the regularity regarding clerical violence and the search for justice, around the figure of the "abusive priest", especially the return of the associative religious field (the biblical context), as a way for journalistic discourse to produce an ironic effect on the Catholic Church, showing that evil is not outside, but inside the institution.