ROME
Crux
By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent February 19, 2016
ROME — Controversy in Australia over the Vatican’s top financial official intensified on Thursday, with leaked documents suggesting that Cardinal George Pell, already under fire for his response to sex abuse allegations against other clergy, is under investigation himself for the alleged abuse of five to 10 boys.
Pell’s Rome office immediately issued a statement calling those accusations “without foundation and utterly false.”
According to the statement, Pell was investigated for these accusations more than 15 years ago. The result of that query, known in Australia as the Southwell Report after AJ Southwell, the former Australian judge who ran the probe, exonerated Pell. The conclusions, Pell’s statement said, have been in the public domain since 2002.
“He strongly denies any wrongdoing,” the statement said, and “if the police wish to question him he will co-operate, as he has with each and every public inquiry.”
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