MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Associated Press
March 5, 2018
By Rod McGuirk
Wearing his clerical collar, the most senior Vatican official ever charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis appeared in an Australian court Monday for a hearing to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to put him on trial.
Australian Cardinal George Pell’s committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court before Magistrate Belinda Wallington is scheduled to take up to a month, with testimony of alleged victims to be suppressed from publication.
Pell arrived by car and was flanked by police and one of his lawyers, Paul Galbally, as he walked through a large group of media and into the court security screening area. He remained silent as he entered.
He emptied his pockets before walking through a security metal detector and a security guarded frisked him in a routine procedure.
Other security guards ensured the public kept their distance from the 76-year-old cleric in the foyers of the seven-floor downtown court house in Australia’s second-largest city where he was once archbishop.
Pope Francis’ former finance minister was charged in June of last year with sexually abusing multiple people in his Australian home state of Victoria. The details of the allegations against the cardinal have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as “historical” sexual assault offenses — meaning the crimes that are alleged to have occurred decades ago.
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