CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
The Associated Press
July 19, 2018
By Rod McGuirk
Australia’s prime minister on Thursday called on Pope Francis to fire an Australian archbishop who is the most senior Roman Catholic cleric ever convicted for covering up child sexual abuse.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said two weeks ago that Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson should have resigned when he was convicted in May of failing to report to police the repeated abuse of two altar boys by a pedophile priest in the Hunter Valley region north of Sydney during the 1970s.
Turnbull said on Thursday the 67-year-old cleric should not be allowed to remain an archbishop while he appealed against his conviction.
“He should have resigned and the time has come for the pope to sack him,” Turnbull told reporters.
“There are many leaders that have called on him to resign, it’s clear that he should resign and I think the time has come now for the ultimate authority in the church to take action and sack him,” Turnbull added.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.