“While the judicial process will continue, Archbishop Wilson’s resignation is the next chapter in a heartbreaking story of people who were sexually abused at the hands of Jim Fletcher and whose lives were forever changed,” the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, said in a statement. Wilson, 67, the archbishop of Adelaide, was convicted in May of failing to disclose to police abuse by a priest, Father James Fletcher, after being told about it in 1976 by two victims, one of them an altar boy who told him inside the confessional. "On July 20 I submitted to the Holy Father, Pope Francis, my resignation from the position of Archbishop of Adelaide," he said. "I made this decision because I have become increasingly worried at the growing level of hurt that my recent conviction has caused within the community," Wilson said in a statement. In recent weeks, political leaders in Australia, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, had called on Francis to take action, with Turnbull saying, “The time has come for the pope to sack him.”

For Francis, the latest resignation underscores a new wave of challenges he is facing about how to handle not just the priests who abused children, but also the cardinals and bishops who allowed the abuse to happen — or sometimes carried it out themselves.
Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson announces his resignation after being convicted for his role in covering up sexual abuse. He is the most senior Roman Catholic official convicted to date.