By Michael Owen
Herald Sun
May 18, 2010
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/i-never-covered-up-abuse-says-archbishop-philip-wilson/story-e6frf7l6-1225869833616
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| Archbishop Philip Wilson denies he was part of a conspiracy of silence. Photo by Alice Prokopec |
THE Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, has denied claims he covered up sex abuse involving the clergy in NSW.
Archbishop Wilson maintained he had not mishandled nor covered up sexual abuse cases during his time in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney, in the late 1970s and 80s.
"I have always tried to act correctly in these areas, and to do what's right, and I have such an abhorrence of this," he said.
"The thing is I was 25 in 1975 when I was ordained as a priest. I thought maybe people had difficulties of virtue in regard to sexuality and so on in the priesthood, but I didn't know there were such people as paedophiles. In my life, I had never seen anything to raise suspicion this was happening."
Archbishop Wilson, who heads the national body of Australian bishops, has been accused of not doing enough in response to clerical sexual abuse when he was an office-holder in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.
Peter Gogarty, a victim of abuse by priest Jim Fletcher, has complained to police about a "conspiracy of silence" because he was preyed on in an upstairs bedroom in the same house in the diocese in which Archbishop Wilson lived at the time.
Mr Gogarty, who was 12 when the abuse began, told ABC TV's Lateline this week he would often see Philip Wilson as he was led in and out of the house by Fletcher, who died in jail in 2006.
Archbishop Wilson has been accused by Mike Stanwell, a former principal of St Joseph's Primary School in Merriwa, NSW, of covering up a sexual assault of an eight-year-old girl by priest Denis McAlinden in 1985.
Archbishop Wilson was a teacher at St Pius X High School in Adamstown in the late 70s, at the time pedophile priest John Denham was abusing students.
He has denied knowledge of abuse, and rejected claims he mishandled the 1985 primary school investigation, but conceded: "It seems to me we were slow and late in getting our act together."
The archbishop said his first involvement in sexual abuse cases involving fellow clergy was in 1985, when then bishop Leo Clarke sent him as his secretary to investigate allegations McAlinden had been abusing an eight-year-old girl.
He said he had suggested to Mr Stanwell and the girl's mother they should go to the police, "but they were very hesitant".
"The bishop then confronted the priest about it and then he was sent away for psychiatric assessment and that was the end of my involvement at that level."
He denied knowledge of an attempted secret defrocking of McAlinden in 1995, after taking statements from two other alleged victims of the priest, despite church documents handed to NSW police early this month reportedly implicating him.
He said he spoke to Mr Stanwell about his responsibilities as principal, telling him "he could depend on me to defend him and help him in the future if there was ever any difficulty".
But Mr Stanwell said yesterday Philip Wilson had never encouraged anyone to go to the police, and there had been no support.
Archbishop Wilson said that between 1975 and 1982 he had been based in Newcastle and would occasionally stay overnight in Maitland, but he had not been living in the same house as Fletcher until 1982, when Mr Gogarty was 22.
"I never saw Peter Gogarty going up the stairs or anywhere in the areas of the bedrooms," Archbishop Wilson said. "I had no suspicion there was anything happening at all. I spoke to Peter some time ago. I said to him that if I'd have known, I would have done something about it."
Mr Gogarty said yesterday he had not said he had been in the house at the age of 12.
"I met Jim Fletcher when I was nine," Mr Gogarty said. "The abuse started when I was about 12. Never, ever have I said I knew Philip Wilson when I was 12 - he wasn't ordained until I was 15.
"What I am saying is that Philip Wilson saw me while I was still being abused, which stopped when I was about 18.
"His tone is now much more conciliatory but it is not enough. He may have fulfilled his duty to the church but I do not believe he fulfilled his duty as a citizen."
Fletcher was charged and convicted in 2004 of 24 offences against four victims.
Archbishop Wilson said he wrestled with his conscience, "but I am quite clear in my mind I saw nothing, there wasn't anything of that nature that raised my suspicions - nor, I might add, that raised the suspicions of the families who were involved.
"But really, practically, I didn't know people behaved like that."
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