AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Archbishop Philip Wilson becomes world’s most senior Catholic charged with concealing child abuse
March 17, 2015
JOANNE McCARTHY
FORMER Hunter priest Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has become the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world to be charged with concealing a child sex abuse allegation against another priest on what a Hunter paedophile priest victim has described as “a Saint Patrick’s Day we’ll never forget”.
The Adelaide archbishop was charged on Tuesday with one count of concealing a child sex allegation made against the late Hunter priest Jim Fletcher in the 1970s, nearly nine months after the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry recommended the charge.
He is one of only a handful of Catholic clergymen in the world to be charged with concealing a child sex allegation against another priest, and only the third in Australia after the late Toronto priest Tom Brennan became the first to face such a charge in 2012.
Archbishop Wilson, the vice-president of the Australian Bishops Conference, denied the allegation in a statement on Tuesday and said he would vigorously defend the matter.
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