ITALY
Daily Mail
By Australian Associated Press and Kate Darvall For Daily Mail Australia
Sex charges laid against Cardinal George Pell are getting heavy coverage in the Italian media, with one newspaper branding him ‘controversial kangaroo’ and Australia ‘a paradise of the orcs’.
The Italian media attacked Australia’s record of sexual assault, and claimed seven per cent of priests had been accused of the offences.
Cardinal Pell was on Thursday charged by Victorian Police with historical sexual assault offences.
He’s the most senior Catholic Church cleric to face such charges in the world in modern times.
Italian newspaper websites on Thursday ran prominent pictures of the 76-year-old and television networks carried long segments with footage of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
They also broadcast footage of Australian sexual assault survivors who attended the Rome end of a Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing when Cardinal Pell gave evidence last year.
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