Australian police charged a top Vatican cardinal Thursday with multiple counts of historical sexual assault offenses, a stunning decision certain to rock the highest levels of the Holy See.

 

Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ chief financial adviser and Australia’s most senior Catholic, said in an early morning appearance at the Vatican that he would take a leave of absence as the Vatican’s finance czar and would return to Australia to fight the charges. He denied the accusations and denounced what he called a “relentless character assassination” in the media.

Victoria state Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said police have a summons for Pell to appear in an Australian court to face multiple charges of “historical sexual assault offenses,” meaning offenses that generally occurred some time ago. Patton said there are multiple complainants against Pell, but gave no other details on the allegations against the cardinal. Pell was ordered to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court July 18.

The charges were announced on a major Catholic feast day, when many of the world’s cardinals were in Rome for a ceremony Wednesday to elevate five new cardinals. As Pell spoke to reporters, preparations were underway in St. Peter’s Square for a huge Mass that Pell had been expected to concelebrate, but he stood down after the charges were announced.

Allegations denied 

Pell, 76, has repeatedly denied all abuse allegations made against him. The Catholic Church in Australia, which issues statements on Pell’s behalf, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges.

 

“It is important to note that none of the allegations that have been made against Cardinal Pell have, obviously, been tested in any court yet,” Patton told reporters in Melbourne. “Cardinal Pell, like any other defendant, has a right to due process.”

 

The charges are a new and serious blow to Pope Francis, who has suffered several credibility setbacks in his promised “zero tolerance” policy about sex abuse.

Mishandled cases

For years, Pell has faced allegations that he mishandled cases of clergy abuse when he was archbishop of Melbourne and, later, Sydney. 

His actions as archbishop came under intense scrutiny in recent years by a government-authorized investigation into how the Catholic Church and other institutions have responded to the sexual abuse of children. Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the nation’s highest form of inquiry, has found shocking levels of abuse in Australia’s Catholic Church, revealing earlier this year that 7 percent of Catholic priests were accused of sexually abusing children over the past several decades. 

 

Last year, Pell acknowledged during his testimony to the commission that the Catholic Church had made “enormous mistakes” in allowing thousands of children to be raped and molested by priests. He conceded that he, too, had erred by often believing the priests over victims who alleged abuse. And he vowed to help end a rash of suicides that has plagued church abuse victims in his Australian hometown of Ballarat.

Cardinal himself accused

 

But more recently, Pell himself became the focus of a clergy sex abuse investigation, with Victoria detectives flying to the Vatican last year to interview the cardinal. It is unclear what allegations the charges announced Thursday relate to, but two men, now in their 40s, have said that Pell touched them inappropriately at a swimming pool in the late 1970s, when Pell was a senior priest in Melbourne. 

 

Australia has no extradition treaty with the Vatican, but the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney issued a statement on behalf of Pell, saying he would return to Australia to clear his name.

When Francis was asked last year about the accusations against Pell, he said he wanted to wait for Australian justice to take its course before judging. 

The Blue Knot Foundation, an Australian support group for adult survivors of childhood abuse, said the decision to charge Pell sent a powerful message to both abuse survivors and society as a whole.

But actually proving the charges may be difficult. The prosecution must prove that the sex offenses occurred beyond a reasonable doubt, which can be difficult when so much time has passed, said Lisa Flynn, national manager of Shine Lawyers’ abuse law practice in Australia.
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