Cardinal faces sex crime charges

Australian police charge Pell with multiple counts

Australian police on Thursday charged Cardinal George Pell, a top adviser to Pope Francis, with multiple historical sex crimes, bringing a worldwide abuse scandal to the heart of the Vatican.

As Vatican economy minister, Pell is the highest- ranking Church official to face such accusations. He asserted his innocence and said the pontiff had given him leave of absence to return to Australia to defend himself.

“I am looking forward finally to having my day in court. I repeat that I am innocent of these charges. They are false,” the 76- year- old told a news confer- ence. “The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me.”

Pell’s high- profile departure, even if only temporary, poses a dilemma for a pontiff who has vowed zero tolerance for such offences.

The charges may also have implications for Francis’ drive to reform Vatican finances, which has been spearheaded by Pell, who also sits on a panel of nine cardinals from around the world who are advisers to Pope Francis.

Police in the Australian state of Victoria, where Pell was a country priest in the 1970s, said he faced “multiple charges in respect of historic sexual offences” from multiple complainants.

They did not detail the charges against Pell or specify the ages of the alleged victims or the period when the crimes were alleged to have occurred.

He was ordered to appear before Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on July 18.

Pell, who declined to take questions, decried a “relentless character assassination” by the media and said he wanted to “clear my name and then return to my work in Rome.”

Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke said Pell would not appear in public church services for the time being.

Pell had told an Australian government inquiry into institutional child abuse last year that the Catholic Church had made “catastrophic” choices by refusing to believe abused children, shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish, and relying too heavily on the counsel of priests to solve the problem.

But he angered victims by saying he was too ill to fly home, testifying instead from Rome.

Then, last July, Victoria police confirmed that Pell himself was being investigated on suspicion of child sexual abuse.