Top Vatican Official Faces Australian Court On Sex Charges

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The most senior Vatican official ever charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis made his first court appearance in Australia on Wednesday in a scandal that has stunned the Holy See and threatened to tarnish the pope's image as a crusader against abusive clergy. Cardinal George Pell, Australia's highest-ranking Catholic and Pope Francis' top financial adviser, has maintained his innocence since he was charged last month with sexually abusing multiple people years ago in his Australian home state of Victoria. The details of the allegations against the 76-year-old cardinal have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as "historical" sexual assault offenses — meaning crimes that occurred years ago. Though many clerics have faced allegations of sex abuse in recent years, Pell is by far the highest-ranking church official ever charged. Advocates for abuse victims have long railed against Francis' decision to appoint Pell to the high-ranking position in the first place; at the time of his promotion in 2014, Pell was already facing allegations that he had mishandled cases of clergy abuse during his time as archbishop of Melbourne and, later, Sydney. Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse — the nation's highest form of inquiry — revealed earlier this year that 7 percent of Catholic priests were accused of sexually abusing children in Australia over the past several decades.

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