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BACK IN AUSTRALIA, NUMBER THREE IN THE VATICAN ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

Sherbrooke Times
July 10, 2017

https://sherbrooktimes.com/back-in-australia-number-three-in-the-vatican-accused-of-sexual-assault/9765

Cardinal George Pell, number three on the Vatican, arrived Monday in Australia, where it must be heard in two weeks on suspicion of sexual assault.

Pope Francis has granted leave to the head of finance for the Holy see to enable him to ensure its defense.

The prelate 76-year-old was charged in late June for ‘ crimes of sexual assault, old “, without any precision on the facts alleged or the ages of the alleged victims. It is convened on 26 July before the court of Melbourne for a preliminary hearing.

Cardinal Pell has landed in Sydney and quickly left the airport. His spokesman said in a press release that it would not make any declaration, but stated that he was grateful for ” the many messages of support he continues to receive “.

“When he was informed of his indictment by the police of the State of Victoria, cardinal Pell said in Rome that”he rejected categorically the accusations, that he was completely innocent and that he would be back in Australia to defend themselves,” he said.

“His return today should not be a surprise,” he added.

The announcement of his indictment at the end of June coincided with the end of a long national survey on the institutional responses made in Australia for the sexual abuse of children, eventually requested by the government in 2012 after a decade of lobbying by victims.

The commission of royal inquiry which led for four years the investigation has gathered testimony challenging of thousands of victims.

The lawyer presiding over this work, Gail Furness, had announced in February that 4.444 facts of paedophilia had been reported to the authorities of the Church in australia and that between 1950 and 2010, “7% of priests were accused” of sexual abuse of children.

Cardinal Pell had been heard three times in this frame and had recognized before the commission of inquiry to have “failed” in its handling of pedophile priests in the State of Victoria in the 1970s.

The clergyman was ordained a priest in 1966 in Rome, before returning to Australia in 1971 where he had climbed the ranks of the catholic hierarchy.

Appointed archbishop of Melbourne in 1996 and Sydney in 2001, he had been accused in 2002 of sexual abuse for crimes that are very old but had been exonerated by the result.

He had been chosen in 2014 by pope Francis to bring more transparency in the finances of the Vatican.




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