Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson Guilty of Sexual Abuse Cover-up

By Adam Baidawi
New York Times
May 21, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/world/australia/philip-wilson-priest-abuse-guilty.html

Archbishop Philip Wilson, center, arriving at a courthouse in Newcastle, Australia, on Tuesday. He was convicted of covering up abuse by a priest in the state of New South Wales in the 1970s.

An Australian archbishop was convicted on Tuesday of covering up a claim of sexual abuse dating back decades, and now faces a prison sentence of up to two years.

Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide, is the highest-ranking Catholic official in the world to be convicted of concealing such crimes.

The decision comes in the midst of a global reckoning for the Roman Catholic Church, as it grapples with a history of child sexual abuse and cover-ups. Cardinal George Pell, also an Australian and the Vatican’s de facto finance chief, was ordered last month to stand trial on charges of “historical sexual abuse.”

Archbishop Wilson, 67, was accused of covering up abuse by a priest, Jim Fletcher, in the state of New South Wales in the 1970s.