AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury
By KATE McILWAIN June 25, 2014
A former Wollongong bishop felt so strongly that a priest accused of child molestation should not be allowed to practise he was willing to “take the matter all the way to the Pope” and resign if necessary, the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Wednesday.
Philip Wilson, now the Archbishop of Adelaide, also criticised the Congregation for the Clergy (CFC) – one of the Vatican’s most powerful bodies – for always taking the side of priests accused of abuse.
Archbishop Wilson was being questioned about events in 1997 on day two of the hearing into the Wollongong Catholic Diocese’s response to child sexual abuse complaints against then Father John Nestor.
At that time, Mr Nestor had successfully appealed a conviction of aggravated indecent assault against a 15-year-old altar boy.
However, due to other complaints – including that Mr Nestor had watched boys showering, made boys bathe naked, conducted bodily “soap inspections” and touched a boy “on the penis and the bum” – Archbishop Wilson was seeking to bar him from working in the ministry until further assessments had been done.
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