One of Australia's most prominent priests, Fr Frank Brennan, says the "show trial" of former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson had backfired badly, causing hurt to many people, "most especially victims of child sexual abuse who thought the law was being rightly applied to put an errant Catholic bishop in the frame".
Fr Brennan, a Jesuit and lawyer who is CEO of Catholic Social Services, said the law under which Archbishop Wilson was charged, Section 316 of the New South Wales Crimes Act, "should be repealed or comprehensively overhauled".
"Everyone, including the victims of abuse and church officials like Wilson, is entitled to be governed by laws which are clear, sensible and practical. Section 316 is not, and never has been," he wrote on the Jesuit-operated Eureka Street website.
"The road to truth, justice and healing will not be found via any more prosecutions under the derelict section 316."
Fr Brennan also said he hoped and prayed that Peter Creigh -- who gave evidence during the trial that as a boy in 1976 he had told then Fr Wilson of being sexually assaulted by a fellow priest in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, Fr Jim Fletcher -- and Archbishop Wilson might one day be reconciled. Fr Fletcher died in prison in 2006.
"In this instance, the processes of the criminal law have inflicted great harm on each of them," Fr Brennan wrote.
Archbishop Wilson, 68, had his conviction for concealing child sexual abuse quashed on appeal on 6 December by Judge Roy Ellis in Newcastle District Court, north of Sydney. Judge Ellis said the Crown had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and ordered Archbishop Wilson, who had served four months of a minimum six months’ home detention, to be released.
The Archbishop, who in March 2015 became the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world to be charged with concealing child sexual abuse, was convicted in May this year and resigned as Archbishop of Adelaide in July.
Judge Ellis also dismissed an appeal by the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions against the “leniency” of Magistrate Robert Stone’s decision in Newcastle Local Court in August that Wilson should serve 12 months of home detention.
The Crown has indicated it will appeal.
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