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Philip Edward Wilson (2 October 1950 – 17 January 2021) was an Australian Roman Catholic prelate who was the eighth Archbishop of Adelaide from 2001 to 2018. He was President of the
Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC) is the national episcopal conference of the Catholic bishops of Australia and is the instrumentality used by the Australian Catholic bishops to act nationally and address issues of national s ...
from 2006 to 2010. From 1996 to 2001 Wilson was
bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
of the Diocese of Wollongong, where he gained a reputation as a "healing bishop" for handling child-abuse scandals. In 2018 Wilson was at first convicted, but then acquitted on appeal, of failing to report in 2004 allegations of child sexual abuse against another priest when he was an assistant parish priest in
East Maitland, New South Wales East Maitland is a suburb in the City of Maitland, New South Wales, Australia. It is on the New England Highway and it has two railway stations, Victoria Street (opened in 1857 with the Newcastle-Maitland line) and East Maitland (opened initial ...
in 1976. After the conviction but before the acquittal, he resigned as archbishop and commenced serving his sentence under
home detention In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, Electronic monitoring in the United States, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their Hous ...
. In September 2019 the fourth previously unreleased volume of the 2014 Special Commissiion of Enquiry into allegations of cover-up of sexual abuse claims in the Dicocese of Maitland-Newcastle commissioned by Margaret Cuneen SC found that Archbishop Wilson was an "unsatisfactory and unimpressive witness" and that he gave evidence the commissioners considered to be "untruthful", "self serving and implausable".


Early life

Wilson was born in Cessnock,
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
, to Joan and John Wilson. He was the eldest of five children and received his primary and secondary education at St Patrick's Primary School in Cessnock and
St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill , motto_translation = Strive Strive for better things , established = , type = Independent single-sex secondary day and boarding school , educational_authority = New South Wales Department of Educati ...
. By his mid-teens, Wilson had decided to enter the priesthood, and on his completion of high school, at the age of 18, he entered
St Patrick's Seminary St Patrick's Seminary, Manly is a heritage-listed former residence of the Archbishop of Sydney and Roman Catholic Church seminary at 151 Darley Road, Manly, Northern Beaches Council, New South Wales, Australia. The property was also known as ...
, Manly. In 1974, he received a
Bachelor of Theology The Bachelor of Theology degree (BTh, ThB, or BTheol) is a three- to five-year undergraduate degree in theological disciplines and is typically pursued by those seeking ordination for ministry in a church, denomination, or parachurch organization. ...
degree from the Catholic Institute of Sydney.


Priesthood

Following his
ordination Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorization, authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominational ...
in 1975, Wilson's first posting was to the
parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...
of East Maitland, New South Wales, where he served as an assistant priest. In 1977–78 he undertook studies in
religious education In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion (although in the United Kingdom the term ''religious instruction'' would refer to the teaching of a particular religion, with ''religious education'' referring to te ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. In 1978, he returned to Australia where he was appointed Director of Religious Education in the Diocese of Maitland (now the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle). After being appointed parish priest of Maitland in 1983, he was promoted to
vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ...
, Diocesan Management and Administration in 1987. From 1990 to 1995, Wilson studied canon law at the
Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U.S. ...
in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, where he received a
Licentiate of Canon Law Licentiate of Canon Law ( la, Juris Canonici Licentiatus; JCL) is the title of an advanced graduate degree with canonical effects in the Roman Catholic Church offered by pontifical universities and ecclesiastical faculties of canon law. Licentiate ...
, and was made a
Prelate of Honour A Prelate of Honour of His Holiness is a Catholic prelate to whom the Pope has granted this title of honour. They are addressed as Monsignor and have certain privileges as regards clerical clothing.Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
.


Bishop of Wollongong

In 1996, Wilson was appointed to replace Bishop William Murray as Bishop of
Wollongong Wollongong ( ), colloquially referred to as The Gong, is a city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. The name is believed to originate from the Dharawal language, meaning either 'five islands/clouds', 'ground near wate ...
, and on 10 July he was consecrated by Cardinal Edward Clancy. Aged 45, Wilson became the youngest Catholic bishop in Australia. During his time as Bishop of Wollongong, Wilson was tasked with dealing with an alleged culture of inadequate responses to child abuse by clergy within the diocese. Wilson's predecessor, Bishop Murray, had been criticised during public hearings of the
Wood Royal Commission The Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service, also known as the Wood Royal Commission, was a royal commission held in the State of New South Wales, Australia between 1995 and 1997. The Royal Commissioner was Justice James Ro ...
for not acting on allegations of sexual misconduct within the diocese and had admitted publicly that he did not know how to deal with them. Upon the delivery of the findings of the Wood Commission, Wilson issued a formal apology to the victims of abuse by clergy within the diocese.


Archbishop of Adelaide

In November 2000, Pope
John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
appointed Wilson to the position of
coadjutor archbishop The term coadjutor (or coadiutor, literally "co-assister" in Latin) is a title qualifier indicating that the holder shares the office with another person, with powers equal to the other in all but formal order of precedence. These include: * Coadj ...
of the Archdiocese of Adelaide, in anticipation of the retirement of
Leonard Faulkner Leonard Anthony Faulkner (5 December 1926 – 6 May 2018) was an Australian Catholic clergyman and the seventh Archbishop of Adelaide. Born in rural South Australia, Faulkner served as an Adelaide parish priest and Bishop of Townsville before be ...
, who was Archbishop of Adelaide at the time. Aged only 50, Wilson's appointment made him the youngest Catholic archbishop in Australia. The announcement of Wilson's promotion brought praise from public figures in Wollongong, with the Lord Mayor saying he had "...played a leading role in restoring the credibility of the Catholic Church here." Archbishop Faulkner described him as "a very pastoral man and a man of the people and very gifted academically". Wilson's welcome
Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
, held at Adelaide's St Francis Xavier's Cathedral on 1 February 2001, was the first Mass in Australia to be broadcast on the internet, recording a reported 40,000 views. Wilson spent most of 2001 learning about the archdiocese while acting as coadjutor, and was installed at a Mass on 3 December, which was attended by about 35 bishops, more than 200 priests and the
Governor of South Australia The governor of South Australia is the representative in South Australia of the Monarch of Australia, currently King Charles III. The governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the governor-gene ...
,
Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Marjorie Jackson-Nelson (13 September 1931) is a former Governor of South Australia and a former Australian athlete. She finished her sporting career with two Olympic and seven Commonwealth Games Gold Medals, six individual world records an ...
. He celebrated Mass for the first time at St Francis Xavier's Cathedral on 9 December 2001. In 2002, Wilson became the first Australian archbishop to be invited to address a session of the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 1966 as the joint National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Conference (US ...
. The session was held in the wake of an emergency meeting between American bishops and Pope John Paul II regarding the sex-abuse crisis within the Church. Wilson was selected to address the conference because of his experience dealing with clerical crimes while bishop of Wollongong. In 2018, Wilson was charged, convicted and later acquitted on appeal of concealing child sex abuse. He was alleged to have been told in 1976 by a victim who had been sexually abused four years earlier. While awaiting sentencing, Wilson stepped aside from his duties as archbishop in late May 2018. On 3 June 2018, Wilson's duties were assumed by
Gregory O'Kelly Gregory John O'Kelly SJ AM (born 10 August 1941) is an Australian Jesuit prelate of the Catholic Church and the former Bishop of Port Pirie. Life O’Kelly was born in Adelaide. He taught at Pentridge Prison and at two schools while preparing ...
, Bishop of Port Pirie, South Australia. Wilson submitted his resignation to
Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...
on 20 July, following conviction for failure to report child sexual abuse. Its acceptance was announced on 30 July 2018. His conviction was overturned by the
District Court of New South Wales The District Court of New South Wales is the intermediate court in the judicial hierarchy of the Australian state of New South Wales. It is a trial court and has an appellate jurisdiction. In addition, the Judges of the Court preside over a rang ...
in December 2018.


Failure to report child sexual abuse

In May 2010, Wilson came under scrutiny for his handling of charges of clerical sexual abuse in two cases in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. The first case originated in 1985, when Father Dennis McAlinden, a priest in that diocese, was alleged to have sexually assaulted two girls. Wilson, the diocese's
vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ...
at the time, was sent to speak to parents at the school where the assault was alleged to have taken place. The principal told the media that Wilson responded by removing McAlinden from his position and providing help for him. The
Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
(ABC) reported that "McAlinden was ... transferred to a remote parish in the
Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal peoples; its ancient landscapes; the red earth; and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. It is also a glo ...
region of
Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
. Over the next decade he sexually assaulted five more girls under the age of 10". Ten years later, in 1995, Bishop Leo Clarke (1923–2006) asked Wilson to take statements from McAlinden's alleged victims. Wilson took the statements and returned them to the bishop. The ABC reported that the statements were never provided to police and that Clarke
defrock Defrocking, unfrocking, degradation, or laicization of clergy is the removal of their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry. It may be grounded on criminal convictions, disciplinary problems, or disagreements over doctrine or ...
ed McAlinden with the promise "that his 'good name' would be protected". In a statement to ABC in 2010, Wilson said he told Clarke in 1985 that McAlinden should be confronted and, that as far as he was aware, this had occurred. He denied involvement in McAlinden's transfer to Western Australia or his defrocking. The second allegations were made in mid-May 2010 by a victim of convicted child sex offender James Fletcher, who had also been a priest in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese. According to the ABC, "
he victim said He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
Archbishop Philip Wilson was a priest living in the bishop's house in Maitland when Fletcher was also living there in the late 1970s, and that Philip Wilson should have been aware that he was being sexually abused in Fletcher's upstairs bedroom." Wilson denied having any knowledge of the assault and said he had not been living in the house at the time, but in a flat behind the residence. The details of the charge were that Wilson should have remembered the 1976 disclosure to him, and reported it in 2004 when Fletcher was charged with other child sex abuse crimes.


Trial and conviction

In March 2015, NSW Police issued Wilson with a future court attendance notice. He faced a charge of "concealing a serious offence regarding child sexual abuse in the Hunter region" in 1976. Wilson immediately took indefinite leave and issued a statement saying he would "vigorously defend my innocence through the judicial system". Wilson returned to work at the beginning of 2016. His attorneys made several requests to have the court proceedings quashed or permanently stayed, including that Wilson had
Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
and should not be tried on medical grounds. These were refused by a magistrate in February 2016, and the appeal was rejected by Justice Monika Schmidt in the
Supreme Court of New South Wales The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. Whilst the Supreme Court i ...
on 14 October 2016, clearing the way for the trial to be heard. One of the alleged victims of abuse asked for the non-publication order on his name to be lifted, and spoke of having told Wilson of the abuse in 1981 when he was 15, five years after it occurred. On 22 May 2018 the Newcastle Local Court found Wilson guilty of the charge of failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse by Fletcher in 1976. Wilson remained on bail pending his sentencing. The prosecution requested a custodial sentence for Wilson, for reasons of "deterrence" and "denunciation". The maximum penalty was two years' imprisonment, which could be suspended. After calls to resign as archbishop, the day after his conviction Wilson announced he was stepping aside from his duties, after putting in place administrative arrangements to manage the affairs of the archdiocese. Sentencing arguments were heard by the magistrate on 19 June 2018, with a decision reserved until 3 July 2018. The prosecution submitted documents that stated that 16 per cent of those convicted of concealing a serious indictable offence receive a full custodial sentence. Wilson's lawyers argued that Wilson could be the target of violence in prison, and sought a recorded conviction and good-behaviour bond. On 3 July 2018, Wilson was sentenced to 12 months' detention, eligible for parole after 6 months. The matter was adjourned until 14 August while a home detention order was assessed, whereby he would serve the sentence at a family member's home in New South Wales. Following his sentencing, Wilson appealed, and said he would not resign from his position until all legal avenues open to him were exhausted. On 19 July, Australian Prime Minister
Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Turnbull grad ...
said he wanted "the ultimate authority in the church to take action and sack him".


Resignation

There were many calls for his resignation, but Wilson had said that he would not step aside until his legal options were exhausted. Pope Francis accepted Wilson's resignation on 30 July 2018 while his appeal against conviction remained in progress. As an archbishop, Wilson became the most senior Catholic cleric convicted of not disclosing abuse by another priest to police; earlier cases involved bishops
Pierre Pican Pierre Auguste Gratien Pican S.D.B. (27 February 1935 – 23 July 2018) was a French prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Bishop of Bayeux from 1988 to 2010. In 2001, he was given a three-month suspended sentence for failing to notify civi ...
in France and Robert Finn in the U.S.


Sentence

On 14 August 2018, Magistrate Robert Stone determined that Wilson was not a threat and ordered him to serve
home detention In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, Electronic monitoring in the United States, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their Hous ...
for the remainder of his one-year sentence. Wilson did not apply for bail following the ruling and immediately began serving his sentence. He would have been eligible for parole on 13 February 2019.


Appeal and acquittal

On 6 December 2018, Wilson was acquitted of all the charges of which he had previously been found guilty. Judge Roy Ellis of the Newcastle District Court, when handing down his decision, said that suspicion was not a substitute for proof and that Wilson was an intelligent and articulate witness that did not attempt to blacken the name of his accuser in his defence. Judge Ellis determined that for a conviction, the prosecution needed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the conversation had taken place in 1976, that Wilson had believed it at the time, and remembered it in 2004. The District Court gave more weight to a written statement by another priest (Glen Walsh) who stated that in 2004 he had sought advice from Wilson about how to respond to being directed by the bishop at that time to hide another allegation against Fletcher. Ellis found it inconceivable that Wilson would advise Walsh to go to the authorities, if he also held information himself about another victim. The acquittal came after Wilson had already served four months of his 12 months of house arrest. Fletcher's victims expressed their extreme disappointment at Wilson's acquittal. The
Director of Public Prosecutions The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the office or official charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world. The title is used mainly in jurisdictions that are or have been members o ...
had been reported to be considering a challenge in the
Supreme Court of New South Wales The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. Whilst the Supreme Court i ...
but on 20 December, announced that there were no reasonable prospects of success of appeal on errors of law. In September 2019 the fourth previously unreleased volume of the 2014 Special Commission of Enquiry into allegations of cover-up of sexual abuse claims in the Dicocese of Maitland-Newcastle commissioned by Margaret Cuneen SC found that Archbishop Wilson was an "unsatisfactory and unimpressive witness" and that he gave evidence the commissioners considered to be "untruthful", "self serving and implausable".


Views

In 2017, during the
Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey was a national survey designed to gauge support for legalising same-sex marriage in Australia. The survey was held via the postal service between 12 September and 7 November 2017. Unlike voting in e ...
regarding
same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...
, Wilson was on the "No" side, defining marriage as being only "between a man and a woman" with "its fundamental role in raising children as part of God’s divine plan for the human family".


Death

Wilson died on 17 January 2021. His health had been poor during his last years and he suffered cancer, but his death was described as "sudden".


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Philip 1950 births 2021 deaths 21st-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Australia Overturned convictions in Australia Roman Catholic archbishops of Adelaide People educated at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill Roman Catholic bishops of Wollongong Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle