Archbishop Philip Wilson Former Archbishop Philip Wilson will serve a maximum 12-month sentence in home detention for concealing child sexual abuse, an Australian court has ruled.
This decision means Wilson (67) will avoid jail. He resigned as archbishop of Adelaide after his conviction and has become the world’s most senior cleric to be convicted of the crime. His lawyers said they would lodge an appeal on Tuesday.
A magistrate said Wilson would commence his sentence immediately at a relative’s home, where he would be monitored by a tracking device. He will be eligible for parole after six months.
As he left court on Tuesday, Wilson did not respond to an abuse survivor who confronted him to demand an apology.
During his trial, Wilson denied knowing that paedophile priest James Patrick Fletcher had abused altar boys in the 1970s.
However, the court ruled in May that Wilson had been alerted to the abuse by victims, and failed to report it.
Fletcher was convicted of nine child sexual abuse charges in 2004, and died in jail in 2006.
Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Archbishop Philip Wilson on July 30 following calls for the prelate’s removal as head of the Archdiocese of Adelaide. Wilson was convicted in May of failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse disclosed to him in the 1970s.
The announcement from the Vatican stated that Archbishop Wilson had submitted his “resignation of the pastoral government of the archdiocese” and that it had been accepted by Pope Francis.
The resignation followed cries from political and Church leaders in Australia for Wilson to either resign or to be removed by Pope Francis, including from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who asked the Pope to dismiss the archbishop on July 19.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, president of the Australian bishops’ conference, also said that “a number of survivors, prominent Australians and other members of the community have publicly called on Archbishop Wilson to resign.”
In a statement on his resignation released on July 30, Wilson said he submitted his resignation letter to Pope Francis on July 20.
He was not requested to do so by the Vatican, he said, but he made the decision because he had become “increasingly worried at the growing level of hurt” his conviction may have caused.
Wilson also noted his previous intention to defer the decision of whether to step down until after the completion of his appeal process, but said: “There is just too much pain and distress being caused by my maintaining the office of Archbishop of Adelaide, especially to the victims of Fr Fletcher.”