Archbishop Philip Wilson is not the only Catholic clergyman to have failed to report child sex allegations to police, and the Catholic Church is not the only institution to have protected criminals who sexually abused children.
That’s worth keeping in mind after Wilson’s sentencing on Tuesday, when media reports around the globe meant you could be forgiven for thinking he is the only person to have failed children over decades.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse left us in no doubt that is not the case. For five years of often gruelling testimony we heard how people prioritised their institutions’ reputation, or their own personal status, above children’s welfare.
As Hunter abuse survivor Peter Gogarty has said, we heard how children were thrown to the wolves, and then how institutions coldly and clinically rejected many of them when they turned to those institutions for help as adults.
Wilson is just the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world to be convicted of concealing the child sex crimes of a priest, in part because the offence occurred in a state of Australia where such a charge exists.
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