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VATICAN CITY — Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson, the most senior cleric found guilty of concealing child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, has resigned, the Vatican said yesterday.
Wilson (67), the archbishop of Adelaide, was convicted in May of failing to disclose to police abuse by a priest, Father James Fletcher, after being told about it in 1976 by two victims, one of them an altar boy who told him inside the confessional..
His resignation, which he had earlier refused to submit, comes as a new wave of sexual abuse allegations have hit the highest echelons of the Church around the world, further tarnishing its image and creating the greatest crisis of Francis’ pontificate, now in its sixth year.
It came two days after the Vatican announced that the pope had stripped Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, DC, of his rank as cardinal and ordered him to live in seclusion. McCarrick has been accused of sexual abuse of minors and adult seminarians decades ago.
Francis is also fighting an image crisis in Chile, where a growing abuse scandal has enveloped the Church since all 34 of the country’s bishops offered to resign.
Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who this month urged the pope to sack Wilson, said he welcomed the decision to quit, which “belatedly recognises the many calls, including my own, for him to resign”. — Reuters
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