Archbishop sentenced for abuse cover-up in landmark court case
● Clergyman could serve 12-month sentence in Aussie home detention
The most senior Roman Catholic cleric to be convicted of covering up child sex abuse has been sentenced to 12 months in detention by an Australian court in a landmark case welcomed by some abuse survivors as a strong warning to institutions that fail to protect children.
Newcastle Magistrate Robert Stone ordered Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson to serve at least six months before he is eligible for parole.
But the archbishop will not immediately go into custody, as a hearing on 14 August will determine whether he might be sentenced to home detention.
In May Mr Stone found the 67-year-old cleric guilty of failing to report to police the repeated abuse of two altar boys by paedophile priest James Fletcher in the Hunter Valley region, north of Sydney, during the 1970s. Archbishop Wilson faced a potential maximum sentence of two years in prison.
The magistrate said Archbishop Wilson failed to act against Fletcher because he “wanted to protect the church and its image”.
“The whole of the community is devastated in so many ways by the decades of abuse and its concealment,” he said. “We are all the poorer for what has occurred.”
The sentencing was another step toward holding the church to account for a global abuse crisis that has also engulfed Pope Francis’s financial minister, Australian Cardinal George Pell. Some lawyers said they expect many more clerics to be charged in Australia as a result of the Archbishop Wilson case.
Survivors of abuse who protested against the church outside the court yesterday called on Wilson to resign as archbishop. They carried signs accusing the church of hypocrisy and describing it as a “fraudulent cult”.
One of priest James Fletcher’s victims, Peter Gogarty, an advocate for fellow survivors, said he was disappointed Wilson had walked free from court, but “there is no doubt the archbishop has received a significant sentence”.
“We have made history here in Australia,” he said. “This is the highest-ranked church official to ever be brought to account for what we know was a worldwide systematic abuse of children and the concealment of that abuse. So I’m content that we’ve done something in Australia that nobody else has been able to manage.”
Another victim, Daniel Feenan, said he would not have been abused by Fletcher as a 12-year-old in 1988 if Wilson had spoken out about the allegations he heard in 1976.
“I do feel I’ve got justice,” Mr Feenan said after the sentencing. “It’s an absolutely strong message.”
Maitland-newcastle Bishop Bill Wright said Wilson as a bishop had taken vigorous action against child abusers. As bishop of Wollongong, Wilson had rejected a Vatican ruling that a suspected pedophile priest should return to duty.
As Adelaide archbishop, he helped police extradite a lay church employee from the United States.
“It is a deep shock and disappointment that this man has been found guilty of covering up abuse,” Bishop Wright said.