South Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic Church official guilty of covering up sexual abuse

South Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic Church official has been found guilty of covering up child sex abuse at the hands of a paedophile priest.  

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson, 67, faces a maximum two years’ jail after he was convicted of concealing the abuse of four altar boys during the 1970s.

Magistrate Robert Stone handed down the verdict in Newcastle Local Court on Tuesday following a magistrate-only trial.  

Archbishop Philip Wilson is pictured (left) arriving at Newcastle Local Court on Tuesday

Prosecutors successfully argued Wilson covered up the abuse of four boys by now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher (pictured) in the NSW Hunter region

The clergyman is the most senior Catholic official in the world to be charged and convicted of the offence. 

Prosecutors successfully argued Wilson covered up the abuse of four boys by now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher in the NSW Hunter region. 

Wilson has been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and claims to have no memory of a 1976 conversation he had with one of the alleged victims. 

Prosecutor Gareth Harrison in April said the archbishop wanted to protect the church’s reputation and absolve himself of guilt as a ‘cat on a hot tin roof’.

‘The accused was part of an entrenched, toxic culture,’ Mr Harrison said during his closing address.

The defence argued Wilson was not guilty because there’s no evidence to prove the archbishop was told about the abuse, believed it was true or remembered being told about it. 

Prosecutors successfully argued Wilson (pictured centre) covered up the abuse of altar boys by now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher in the NSW Hunter region

Wilson has been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and claims to have no memory of a 1976 conversation he had with one of the alleged victims