AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (first written in 2010, updated 2 Jaunuary 2016)
A prominent Australian Catholic Church leader, Archbishop Philip Wilson, has claimed (in 2010) that during his rise from junior priest to church administrator, he “knew nothing” about the sexually-abusive behaviour of fellow-priests — even though he lived and worked with some of these criminals. Does Wilson’s “know-nothing” attitude help us to understand his rise to the top of the Australian church hierarchy? Wilson’s senior roles eventually included the managing of the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, as well as being appointed as the archbishop of Adelaide. In March 2015, Archbishop Wilson was charged by police with concealing child sex abuse allegedly committed by another priest during the 1970s. After being charged, Wilson went on indefinite leave from his archbishop role. However, he has decided now to resume work as the archbishop in January 2016, despite the fact that the concealment charge is still awaiting him in the court system.
From 1996 onwards, Wilson was a long-time member of the Australian bishops’ National Committee for Professional Standards — the body that was established to oversee the management of the church’s sexual-abuse crisis.
In 2001, Wilson’s fellow bishops elected him as the chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference — at a time when the worldwide Catholic hierarchy was being accused of having covered up clergy sex-abuse crimes. He held this top position for the next ten years.
This career rise is quite significant for someone who says he formerly “knew nothing” about clergy sex crimes.
Background
Philip Edward Wilson was born in 1950, the eldest of five children, and grew up within the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney. This is one of the eleven Catholic dioceses in New South Wales.
After finishing his schooling, he was accepted by the Maitland diocese as a candidate to enter a seminary in Sydney to study in for the priesthood.
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