Archbishop Philip Wilson losing faith of Adelaide priests following NSW court conviction

A SENIOR Adelaide Catholic Church priest has publicly called for Archbishop Philip Edward Wilson to resign, signalling a mounting grassroots crisis of confidence after his conviction for covering up child sex abuse.

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A SENIOR Adelaide Catholic Church priest has publicly called for Archbishop Philip Wilson to resign over his conviction for covering up child-sex abuse, signalling a mounting grassroots crisis of confidence.

Monsignor Rob Egar, a respected and influential cleric, told the Sunday Mail that many, if not most South Australian-based priests, now believed Wilson, 67, should quit.

His public intervention came as the Vatican and Australia’s Ambassador to the Holy See remained silent.

Monsignor Egar, a former Vicar-General in the 1990s and a member of the Council of Priests, said he should offer his resignation to Pope Francis as a clear sign of “compassion” for abuse victims.

“The priests of the archdiocese have great sympathy for Archbishop Wilson in his daunting dilemma and are conscious of his tireless leadership in the area of the protection of children,” he said in a statement.

“However, many priests, if not most, believe that, as a demonstrable sign of the Church’s compassion towards the victims of abuse, it would be most appropriate for the Archbishop to offer to Pope Francis his resignation.”

In his 60 years as a priest, Monsignor Egar has worked in the Croydon, Brighton, Morphett Vale, Salisbury, Glenelg and Seacombe Gardens parishes.

Archbishop Philip Wilson says he’ll appeal his conviction.

He is now retired but fills in as a “supply priest” in parishes. An Adelaide Archdiocese spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment last night.

The call by such a senior priest for his Archbishop to resign is an unprecedented action in modern times within the normally cohesive and moderate Adelaide archdiocese.

It has echoes of the turmoil that surrounded Adelaide’s third Catholic bishop, Laurence Shiel, who in 1871 excommunicated Josephite nun Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first saint.

The ABC’s Compass program revealed how she was banished after she, and her fellow nuns, told church authorities they believed a priest was sexually abusing children in the Kapunda parish.

Wilson, who remains on bail, is defying widespread public calls to quit in the wake of his sentencing last week after his guilty verdict of concealing child sex abuse by a fellow priest and his former flatmate.

Magistrate Robert Stone found that between 2004 and 2006, Wilson did not tell New South Wales police what he knew about the sexual abuse of children by the now deceased paedophile priest James Fletcher in the 1970s.

At Newcastle Local Court last Tuesday, Magistrate Stone sentenced Wilson to 12 months’ jail with a six-month non-parole term.

Earlier in the week, Premier Steven Marshall and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for Archbishop Philip Wilson to resign from his post.

He is now being assessed for his suitability to serve it on home detention, most likely at his sister’s NSW Central Coast home. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and Premier Steven Marshall, have joined Fletcher’s victims in calling on him to resign.

The home detention aspect has been widely criticised.

The state’s former Director of Public Prosecution Stephen Pallaras, QC, lashed the sentence in The Advertiser, describing it as little more than a “six month sleepover at his sister’s home”.

In a brief statement announcing he would appeal against his conviction in the NSW District Court, Wilson said he had taken the calls for him to resign “very seriously”, but would not do so until he had completed exercising his legal rights.

“However, if I am unsuccessful in my appeal, I will immediately offer my resignation to the Holy See (the Vatican),” he said.

Wilson’s supporters say that, while he is aware that many priests now want him to resign, he still had the backing of a large group of priests, who believed he should be allowed to follow an appeal process with his title intact.

“A lot of people are saying ‘let’s not have a lynch mob’,” one senior cleric said.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Brisbane’s Archbishop Mark Coleridge, said while it had no authority to compel him to resign, “a number of Australian bishops have also offered their advice privately”.

“Only the Pope can compel a bishop to resign,” he said.

Any verdict from Pope Francis will be delivered via the Vatican’s chief diplomat in Australia, the Papal Nuncio Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana.

Cartoonist Peter MacMullin's view of Archibishop Philip Wilson’s support among Adelaide Catholic priests.

If the Papal Nuncio flags the Vatican wants an archbishop to resign, it is usual they are allowed to offer their resignation to the Pope to avoid an embarrassing forced exit.

But one well-placed church source said the Vatican may not consider a resignation was necessary at this stage.

This was because it had already acted to ensure he could no longer exercise any power or authority as an archbishop.

By taking the rare step of appointing Port Pirie’s Bishop Greg O’Kelly as an apostolic administrator to the Adelaide archdiocese, calls for Wilson’s resignation might be viewed as “a hollow request”, the unnamed source said.

Magistrate Stone rejected Wilson’s evidence he could not remember being told by boys in 1976 of Fletcher’s sexual abuse and found victims’ reliability “cannot be questioned or attacked”.

He specifically found Wilson was not involved in any abuse.

Australia’s Ambassador to the Holy See, Melissa Hitchman, referred inquiries to the Foreign Affairs Department in Canberra.

A DFAT spokeswoman said on Saturday: “It is not appropriate... to comment on the outcome of legal proceedings. Whether the Vatican decides to intervene is a matter for the Vatican.”

A Vatican spokesman did not respond to inquiries.