Australian Cardinal Pell, Vatican #3, on trial for sexual assault

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This video from Australia says about itself:

Cardinal George Pell ‘Exposed’ Full Story

28 July 2016

Les Tyack says he saw a naked George Pell expose himself to three young boys in the Torquay surf club changerooms in the late 1980s. Police are investigating multiple child abuse allegations levelled directly against Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric Cardinal George Pell, the ABC’s 7.30 program has revealed.

After a winged northern cardinal singing beautifully, a non-winged Australian cardinal in not so beautiful news.

From daily The Age in Australia today:

Cardinal George Pell to stand trial on historical sex assault charges

By Adam Cooper & Tom Cowie

1 May 2018 — 10:19am

George Pell will be the most senior Catholic leader to face a jury after being committed to stand trial on multiple historic sexual assault charges.

In a decision that will ring loud through the Vatican and around the religious world, Australia’s most senior Catholic and the man who a year ago oversaw management of the Vatican’s finances was on Tuesday committed to stand trial on half the charges he faced, involving multiple accusers.

However, magistrate Belinda Wallington struck out a series of serious charges at the start of her ruling, finding there was insufficient evidence for him to be convicted by a jury.

Ms Wallington committed the 76-year-old on charges against multiple complainants, involving alleged sexual offending at a swimming pool in the 1970s in Ballarat, where the accused man was then working as a priest; and at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in 1990s, when he was the then Archbishop of Melbourne. …

But the magistrate ruled the evidence of the other accusers was credible enough to be believed by a jury, that there was no evidence they had colluded in what they told police, and that their allegations were not contaminated by media reports, most notably a television interview on the ABC’s 7.30 program. …

Cardinal Pell had his bail extended and is due to appear in the County Court on Wednesday, when a judge will set a date for his trial. …

Flanked by up to 40 police officers, Cardinal Pell had arrived at the court in a white sedan just after 9am. He wore a dark coloured suit and white shirt and clerical collar.

The police separated the cardinal’s path from the public as protesters arrived with laminated signs reading “every child deserves a safe and happy childhood”.

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