Top Vatican Cardinal Facing Sex Charges Condemns `character Assassination?

Daily Mail
June 29, 2017

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-4649910/Top-Vatican-cardinal-facing-sex-charges-condemns-character-assassination.html

A senior Vatican cardinal charged in Australia with multiple historical sexual offences has denied the accusations and denounced what he called a “relentless character assassination” in the media.

Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’s chief financial adviser and Australia’s most senior Catholic, said he would take a leave of absence as the Vatican’s finance tsar and would return to Australia to fight the charges.

Pell is the highest-ranking Vatican official charged in the church’s long-running sexual abuse scandal.

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton of Victoria state police said officers have summonsed Pell to appear in court to face multiple charges of historical sexual assault offences.

Mr Patton gave no other details of the allegations, and Pell was ordered to appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on July 18.

Pell, 76, has for years faced allegations that he mishandled cases of clergy abuse when he was archbishop of Melbourne and then Sydney, but more recently, he became the focus of a sex abuse investigation himself, with Victoria detectives flying to the Vatican last year to interview him.

It is unclear what allegations the charges relate to, but two men in their 40s have said Pell touched them inappropriately at a swimming pool in the late 1970s when he was a senior priest in Melbourne.

Cardinal Pell denies all allegations against him (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

Mr Patton said none of the allegations against Pell had been tested in any court, adding: “Cardinal Pell, like any other defendant, has a right to due process.”

The charges are a new and serious blow to Pope Francis, who has already suffered several credibility setbacks in his promised “zero tolerance” policy about sex abuse.

The charges also complicate Francis’s financial reform efforts at the Vatican, which were already strained by Pell’s repeated clashes with the Italian-dominated bureaucracy.

Last week, one of Pell’s top allies, the Vatican’s auditor general, resigned without explanation two years into a five-year term, raising questions about whether the reform effort was doomed.

The charges are a setback for Pope Francis (Andrew Medichini/AP)

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said Pope Francis had learned with “regret” of the charges and had granted Pell a leave of absence to defend himself. He said the Vatican’s financial reforms would continue in his absence.

The leading support group for victims of sexual abuse by priests has called on the Pope to speak out about the charges against Pell.

US-based survivors’ network Snap noted Francis had promised to work to “end the scourge of abuse by his clergy”.

The group called on anyone with additional information about the Pell case to come forward.