AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Morning Herald
December 6, 2017
Joanne McCarthy
Archbishop Philip Wilson allegedly told a boy he “should be ashamed of himself for lying” and ordered him to “say 10 Hail Marys” after the child allegedly disclosed he had been sexually abused by Hunter priest Jim Fletcher, a landmark trial has heard.
Archbishop Wilson, then a junior Maitland-Newcastle priest, allegedly asked the boy “where he got the story from” and told him he did not believe him after the boy protested he was not making it up.
The court heard the boy allegedly told the then Father Philip Wilson during confession in 1976 that Father Fletcher “asked me to put my mouth on his penis, where you go to the toilet” while helping as an altar boy at an East Maitland Catholic church.
The boy was one of two alleged to have told Father Wilson in 1976 that they had been sexually abused by Fletcher.
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