Source: kron4.com --- Thursday, June 29, 2017
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cardinal George Pell, a top adviser to Pope Francis, took a leave of absence as the Vatican’s financial chief Thursday to fight criminal charges in his native Australia that alleged he committed sexual assault years ago. Pell forcefully denied the accusations, denounced what he called a “relentless character assassination” in the media and said he would return to Australia to clear his name. “I repeat that I am innocent of these charges. They are false. The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me,” he said in an appearance at the Vatican press office. Pell, 76, is the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to be charged in the church’s long-running sexual abuse scandal, and the developments pose a new and serious obstacle for Francis in his promised “zero tolerance” policy. Victoria state Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton announced the charges Thursday, saying police had ordered Pell to appear in court July 18 to face multiple counts of “historical sexual assault offenses,” meaning offenses that generally occurred some time ago. There are multiple complainants against Pell, Patton said, but he gave no other details. The cardinal has faced allegations for years that he mishandled cases of clergy abuse when he was archbishop of Melbourne and, later, Sydney. More recently, however, Pell himself became the focus of a clergy sex abuse investigation, with Victoria detectives interviewing him in the Vatic ...
from Australia http://ift.tt/2tqsyJB
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