AUSTRALIA
The Conversation
Kathleen McPhillips
Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science at University of Newcastle
On Tuesday, NSW Police charged one of the most senior Catholic clergymen in Australia – the Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson – with the concealment of an allegation of child sexual abuse by convicted paedophile priest James Fletcher in Maitland in the 1970s. Wilson said he will “vigorously defend” his innocence.
The significance of Wilson’s charges
The importance of Wilson being charged cannot be overstated. Despite state inquiries and court hearings finding time and again that Catholic Church clergymen systematically failed to report child sexual abuse to police, no Catholic clergyman in Australia has ever been convicted of this crime.
Only a handful of clergymen have been charged and convicted with this crime globally in, for example, the US and France. Wilson is the most senior clergyman in the world to face this charge.
The charge against Wilson is a result of the ongoing work of Strikeforce Lantle. This was established by Newcastle police in 2010 to investigate the alleged concealment of child sexual abuse by church officials in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.
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