MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The New York Times
March 12, 2019
By Livia Albeck-Ripka
The sentencing of Cardinal George Pell for molesting boys more than two decades ago comes just weeks after a Vatican summit in which Pope Francis called for “all-out battle against the abuse of minors.”
Cardinal Pell is the most senior cleric in the Roman Catholic Church ever to receive jail time for child sexual abuse. But for decades, it has been victims, journalists and civil authorities who have forced abusers into the open and called them to account when church leaders failed to do so.
Law enforcement officials in some countries have become more willing in recent years to prosecute priest perpetrators, according to observers of the scandals.
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