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  Victims Frustrated by Adelaide Archbishop

ABC
May 22, 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2906545.htm

[with audio]

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, who has been embroiled in priest sex abuse claims in New South Wales, says he had no idea of the abuse perpetrated by a colleague in his former diocese.

Archbishop Philip Wilson has told the ABC's Stateline program in South Australia that he never saw one incident of abuse. The response has done little to quell the anger of victims.

Bronwyn Herbert reports.

BRONWYN HERBERT: The Newcastle/Maitland diocese is at the epicentre of more than a hundred alleged cases of sexual abuse by at least five different priests.

This week Lateline revealed that one of the Catholic Church's highest leaders, Archbishop Philip Wilson, lived in the same house as a clergyman who was convicted of sexually abusing a teenager.

Victims say that while Philip Wilson was working in the diocese, he should have known about the sexual abuse by his colleague. Something Philip Wilson - now the Archbishop of Adelaide - denies.

PHILIP WILSON: I never saw that. There was never one incident where I saw Peter Gogarty going upstairs to the bedrooms in the bishop's house. And in fact, I only came to live at the bishop's house in 1982 when the bishop and I moved back to make it the centre of the diocese again.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Archbishop Wilson addressed the claims in an interview with ABC TV's Stateline program.

ALLAN ATKINSON: The man who spoke to Lateline, Peter Gogarty, says it's not enough if you thought that your then Bishop Clarke might tell the police that you should have done.

PHILIP WILSON: Well, I think it's all based on the claim that I knew that there was something happening. I did not know and therefore there was no way in which I had responsibility to do anything.

BRONWYN HERBERT: The Catholic Church in Australia has been under increasing pressure to take action against paedophile priests. Abuse victim Peter Gogarty says the latest response from Archbishop Wilson does little to quell his concerns:

PETER GOGGARTY: There are a number of incidents relating to priests in the Hunter Valley where the Archbishop's name has been linked, and my concern is that how many of these revelations need to come out before somebody says it's just all too convenient to keep saying 'I knew nothing'.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Peter Gogarty is now advocating for justice for victims around Australia.

PETER GOGGARTY: People like Archbishop Wilson knew what was going on with a number of these priests and didn't do anything other than move the priests along or make attempts to get them out of their local diocese; never once went to the police and said we've got a problem.

BRONWYN HERBERT: But Archbishop Wilson in his latest interview has stated that he never saw the abuse and didn't know what was going on?

PETER GOGGARTY: Mmm… and I think Bronwyn, the Archbishop has also conceded that he saw young men… young boys in the company of Father Jim Fletcher in the bishop's house in Maitland during the 1970s and early into the 1980s.

BRONWYN HERBERT: The victim support group Broken Rights maintains there needs to be a parliamentary inquiry into the matter; one that compels senior members of the church to reveal what they knew of the abuse.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Bronwyn Herbert with that report.

 
 

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