MAITLAND-Newcastle’s next Catholic bishop Bill Wright has had two new appointments in the past 18 months – the first to replace a priest jailed for a child sex offence, and the second to replace a bishop exhausted by years of child sex scandals.
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‘‘We’ve all been touched by it,’’ Father Wright said yesterday from All Saints parish in Liverpool where he was appointed in 2009 after its priest Robert Fuller was jailed for attempting to procure a child over the internet for sex.
Father Wright was ‘‘very aware of the difficulties’’ involving paedophile priests in the Hunter when advised more than a week ago that he would replace an exhausted Bishop Michael Malone.
‘‘You’ve had some of the really big cases and in Australian terms it is a hot spot,’’ he said.
He described the sexual abuse issue as a crisis that is ‘‘the cause of great sadness’’.
He accepted the position of Maitland-Newcastle bishop knowing there are outstanding court cases involving priests, a taskforce investigating an alleged cover-up of a paedophile priest, and outstanding civil cases against the diocese by sexual abuse victims.
‘‘I have no choice. I’ve got to be prepared for that,’’ Father Wright said.
‘‘It’s a real challenge to get this stuff right and there might be times when I don’t but I’m prepared to do my best.’’
Father Wright, 58, entered the priesthood straight from school after first considering the idea in year 10.
If he had not become a priest he would have been a teacher.
He had contact with Bishop Malone when the two were priests in Sydney, although they had not spoken for about five years until a brief phone call in the past week after Father Wright became his replacement.
‘‘I know him, he knows me and we feel like we’ve known one another for a long time,’’ Father Wright said.
He said there were Hunter priests he had studied with or taught, but he had ‘‘no profound connection with the Hunter’’ other than that.
Although his selection had been rumoured for some time, Father Wright said he was surprised when Australia’s Papal Nuncio Giuseppe Lazzarotto phoned to speak to him about it.
‘‘It did surprise me, not least because I wasn’t aware Bishop Malone was retiring,’’ he said.
‘‘I knew he’d made some moves in that direction but nothing seemed to have come of that.’’
Although Bishop Malone wrote to the Vatican more than a year ago requesting a coadjutor bishop to assist him, as he had been appointed to assist the late Bishop Leo Clarke, Father Wright has been appointed bishop outright.
‘‘They hardly ever appoint coadjutor bishops any more,’’ Father Wright said.
He will take up the position within three months. Sydney’s Cardinal George Pell is expected to lead the ordination.