The Vatican on Sunday announced a temporary replacement for an Australian archbishop who was convicted of concealing child sex abuse by a fellow priest in the 1970s.
Pope Francis said in a statement that Greg O’Kelly, the current Bishop of Port Pirie, in the state of South Australia, would temporarily replace Philip Wilson, the Archbishop of Adelaide, who stepped aside after being convicted of covering up abuses last month.
Wilson is the highest ranking Catholic official to be convicted of covering up sexual abuse, part of a global scandal that has dogged the Vatican for decades.
The 67-year-old was found guilty of having concealed the abuse of altar boys in the 1970s by a pedophile priest colleague, James Fletcher, when he was an assistant parish priest in the state of New South Wales.
Archbishop Wilson stepped down on May 23, a day after he was convicted at the Newcastle Local Court in New South Wales.
As part of his defense, Wilson’s legal team argued that because child sexual abuse was not considered a serious crime in the 1970s, it was not worthy of being reported to authorities, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
At the time, Wilson released a statement that said, “If at any point in time it becomes necessary or appropriate for me to take more formal steps, including by resigning as archbishop, then I will do so.”
Archbishop Wilson was a junior priest when Fletcher, a Catholic Priest based in the Hunter Valley of NSW, abused altar boys.
Wilson was charged in 2015, accused of failing to report Fletcher’s abuse to police.
Fletcher died in prison in 2006, a year after being found guilty of eight counts of child abuse and sentenced to 10 years.
Speaking to reporters outside the Newcastle Court last week, one of Fletcher’s victims praised the Archbishop’s conviction.
Former altar boy Peter Creigh, who waived his right to a non-publication order on his name, said, “It’s a decision that will hopefully unravel the hypocrisy, the deceit, and the abuse of power and trust that the Church has displayed.
