AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (a background article, written in 2010, still relevant in 2015)
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.
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.
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