The 67-year-old Catholic cleric was sentenced to 12 months in jail earlier this month for concealing child sexual abuse, but he plans to appeal.

“He should have resigned, and the time has come for the Pope to sack him,” Turnbull told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.

The call came just before the prime minister was due to head into a meeting with Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president and Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge and the incoming Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli.

It’s expected they will discuss reforms to school funding and possible laws to force the disclosure of information provided in the confessional, following a recommendation from the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Wilson was found guilty in May of failing to report to police the historical sexual abuse of two altar boys by a pedophile priest after a landmark magistrate-only trial in Newcastle Local Court.

Calls for his resignation in the wake of the guilty verdict came thick and fast, but Wilson says he will only resign if his appeal in the NSW District Court is unsuccessful.

– AAP