Free Republic

The most senior Catholic to be charged with concealing child sexual abuse — Adelaide's Archbishop Philip Wilson — has been found guilty by a New South Wales court, in a landmark ruling. The 67-year-old was accused of covering up abuse by priest Jim Fletcher in the NSW Hunter region in the 1970s. As part of his defence, Wilson's legal team tried to argue that as child sexual abuse was not considered a serious crime in the 1970s, it was not worthy of being reported to authorities. However, Magistrate Robert Stone cast that claim aside in a ruling that could have...