(CNN) The Vatican on Sunday announced a temporary replacement for an Australian archbishop who was convicted of concealing child sex abuse by a fellow priest in the 1970s.

Pope Francis said in a statement that Greg O'Kelly, the current Bishop of Port Pirie, in the state of South Australia, would temporarily replace Philip Wilson, the Archbishop of Adelaide, who stepped aside after being convicted of covering up abuses last month.

Wilson is the highest ranking Catholic official to be convicted of covering up sexual abuse, part of a global scandal that has dogged the Vatican for decades.

The 67-year-old was found guilty of having concealed the abuse of altar boys in the 1970s by a pedophile priest colleague, James Fletcher, when he was an assistant parish priest in the state of New South Wales.

Archbishop Wilson stepped down on May 23, a day after he was convicted at the Newcastle Local Court in New South Wales.