Cardinal George Pell was, as Vatican treasurer, one of the Catholic Church's most powerful figures and a senior counselor to Pope Francis, until Pell was placed on a leave of absence last year. Last week, he was convicted in an Australian court on what were referred to there as "historical" sex abuse charges. That locution seemed to diminish the events themselves, which, as a unanimous jury found, occurred decades ago. Yet the crucible of clergy sex abuse remains a thoroughly contemporary blight for the church, for the Vatican and for Francis, whose papacy, already blemished by his flailing and shuffling on the issue, hangs in the balance.
https://www.postguam.com/forum/the-vatican-s-no-was-convicted-of-sex-abuse-but/article_2d1c64ea-0298-11e9-8435-43229bf472bf.html
https://www.postguam.com/forum/the-vatican-s-no-was-convicted-of-sex-abuse-but/article_2d1c64ea-0298-11e9-8435-43229bf472bf.html