AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Pope Francis says he won’t address child molestation allegations against Cardinal George Pell until a police investigation has concluded.
The pope told reporters on a plane returning from World Youth Day in Krakow that the accusations against Cardinal Pell, Francis’ top financial adviser, ‘‘are in the hands of justice.”
He said that the Cardinal deserved the benefit of the doubt, adding that ‘‘once justice has its say, I will speak. “
Cardinal Pell last week urged a criminal investigation into the ABC and rogue Victorian police whom he alleges may be involved in a “conspiracy to pervert the course of justice”, amid new claims the Cardinal molested two boys as a priest in the late 1970s.
The ABC’s 7.30 had reported the claims that Victorian police were investigating multiple allegations of child sex abuse by the cardinal dating back to the 1970s. Two former St Alipius students, Lyndon Monument and Damian Dignan, told the program that Cardinal Pell would abuse boys at the Eureka swimming pool in Ballarat.
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