Archbishop denies boys told of abuse

NEWCASTLE, Australia — A Roman Catholic archbishop on Wednesday denied under oath in an Australian court that two former altar boys ever told him that they had been sexually abused by a priest.

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson is the most senior cleric in the world to face charges over covering up for a pedophile priest.

The 67-year-old was tried Wednesday in the Newcastle Local Court after Magistrate Robert Stone rejected his application to have the case thrown out. Wilson has pleaded innocent and faces a potential two-year prison sentence if convicted.

Wilson, who has been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, said he had known one of the former altar boys, Peter Creigh, and his family when he was an assistant priest in the Hunter Valley region north of Sydney in the mid-1970s.

But the archbishop said he had no memory of Creigh telling him in 1976 that he had been sexually abused by the Rev. James Fletcher five years earlier when he was 10.

The second former altar boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claims he was about 11 in 1976 when he went into the confessional box to tell Wilson that Fletcher had abused him. Wilson said he had no memory of seeing the second altar boy at all in 1976 and he would never accuse anyone in the confessional of telling lies.

The trial is expected to continue until Friday.