CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
The Associated Press
May 22, 2018
By Rod McGuirk
An Australian archbishop on Tuesday became the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in the world convicted of covering up child sex abuse in a test case that holds to account church hierarchy that kept silent in the face of an international pedophile crisis.
Magistrate Robert Stone handed down the verdict against Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson in Newcastle Local Court, north of Sydney, following a magistrate-only trial.
Wilson, 67, had pleaded not guilty to concealing a serious crime committed by another person — the sexual abuse of children by pedophile priest James Fletcher in the 1970s.
He had made four attempts in the past three years to have the charge struck out without a trial.
The conviction is another step toward holding the church to account for a global abuse crisis that has also engulfed Pope Francis’ financial minister, Australian Cardinal George Pell.
Frank Brennan, an Australian Jesuit priest, human rights lawyer and academic, said Wilson had to stand aside as archbishop of the South Australian state capital.
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