AUSTRALIA
InDaily
Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has revealed he had an “awkward” conversation with a pedophile priest about to face trial in NSW for repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy.
Wilson, the most senior Catholic official in the world to be charged with concealing child sexual abuse, told the Newcastle Local Court today he met James Fletcher in late 2004 in the Hunter region a day after a family told him their son had been abused by the priest.
Wilson, who’d worked in the same parish as Fletcher and lived with him briefly in the 1980s, said he visited the priest’s mother to offer her support given the anguish she was suffering after Fletcher was charged.
The archbishop, now 67, said he been there for about 20 minutes when Fletcher appeared unexpectedly. They then talked for a few minutes.
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