Charges of sexual offenses
against one of the Vatican’s top-ranking prelates have placed new pressure on Pope Francis to make good on pledges
to root out, punish and prevent abuses that have shaken the Roman Catholic
Church worldwide.
Cardinal George Pell, the most senior
church official to be implicated in a far-flung scandal of decades’ standing,
said Thursday that he would return to his native Australia to face the charges
against him.
He
dismissed the charges as “relentless character assassination.”
The
cardinal, who is a senior advisor to Francis, told reporters in Vatican City
that the pontiff had granted him a leave of absence to contest the charges,
which bring the globe-spanning abuse allegations directly to the gates of the
Vatican.
Although
cases of priest-committed pedophilia and their wrenchingly long-lasting
repercussions remain an open wound in dozens of dioceses across the United
States and other countries, it is rare for direct allegations of abuse to reach
the level of a cardinal, each of whom is known as a “prince of the church.”
Australian authorities described the
charges against Pell as centering on sex offenses committed decades ago in
Australia — “historical” crimes, in police language. Pell had already come
under withering scrutiny in his homeland for allegedly helping to cover up
sexual predation by others while he held senior church positions in Australia.
From
his humble beginnings as a parish priest, Pell, 76, rose to become the
Vatican’s powerful finance czar, tasked by Francis with untangling the
convoluted accounting practices of the church’s worldwide empire. The
cardinal’s sidelining could significantly hamper that ambitious reform effort,
which has drawn significant hostility from elements of the Vatican bureaucracy.
The
abuse scandal, which has colored successive papacies, is a far more visible
public battle.
Francis
has pledged “zero tolerance” for sexual abuse within the clerical ranks and has
offered personal apologies to victims for past sexual predation and the
church’s attempts to diminish and deny it. Yet he has also come under criticism
for alleged foot-dragging and failure to forcefully confront institutional
resistance to transparency and accountability.
“Clearly,
this case is going to turn up the heat on this pope’s record on examination of
sexual abuse,” said John Allen, the editor of Crux, an independent website
covering the Vatican and the church. But he predicted that Pell, who in his
youth excelled at the rough-and-tumble sport of Australian rules football,
would aggressively fight the charges.
The
cardinal, who did not take questions during his Vatican City appearance, has
been ordered to appear before a court in Melbourne on July 18.
"I
am looking forward finally to having my day in court,” Pell told reporters. “I
repeat that I am innocent of these charges. They are false.… The whole idea of
sexual abuse is abhorrent to me."
The
charges originated in the Australian state of Victoria, where police said,
without providing details, that there were multiple charges from multiple
complainants lodged against Pell.
For
many victims in the U.S. and elsewhere, the cardinal’s case revives painful
memories of being disbelieved and dismissed after suffering abuses in childhood
at the hands of priests who were respected, even beloved, in their communities.
In
one of the most notorious U.S. cases, in the Archdiocese of Boston, abuse and
cover-ups involving hundreds of clergy and thousands of victims, many dating
back decades, were documented in a 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning series by the Boston Globe and the 2015 movie
“Spotlight.” But new accusations, of abuse and systematic attempts to
conceal it, continue to surface.
During
his visit to the United States in 2015, Francis disappointed and surprised many
victims and advocates when he appeared to praise American bishops for their
handling of abuse cases. Although the pope has since expressed sympathy for
those who suffered abuse, Vatican follow-up has been inadequate, said Thomas
Doyle, a canon lawyer and priest who has worked with victims of pedophile
priests in the U.S. for more than three decades
“Hopefully,
this will get the pope’s attention, not only about Pell but about the problem
in general,” he said. “The pope has done nothing so far. There’s a lot of disappointment
among victims.”
With
the Pell case throwing into sharp relief a long-standing sense of alienation
and anger, the case could have grave ramifications for Francis’ papacy, some
Vatican watchers said.
“It
poses an enormous credibility challenge,” said Cristina Traina, a religion
professor at Northwestern University. “It needs to be taken quite seriously.
Statements of regret and distress and promises to do better in the future at
this point are inadequate.”
Critics
point to an enormous backlog of sexual abuse cases that have gone unacted upon.
In 2014, Francis created a commission including two abuse victims to advise on
the weeding out of predator priests, but the two victims — Peter Saunders and Marie Collins — left the
commission amid frustrations over its inaction.
Collins
said in an online post that though she was reserving judgment on whether Pell
was guilty of committing abuse, he should have been made to answer to
allegations he took part in cover-ups and should never have attained the prominent
post he was given by Francis.
“He
should never have been allowed to hide out in the Vatican to avoid having to
face those in his home country who needed answers,” Collins wrote on her
website.
The
case will take time to wend its way through Australian courts, and the outcome
could ultimately color Francis’ overall legacy, some observers said.
“His
very image as a bold reformer hangs in the balance here, depending on what
measures he takes in the aftermath of the Pell case,” said Andrew Chesnut, a
professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Sex abuse cases are the
Achilles’ heel of his papacy.”
Previously,
Pell said he was ill and declined to return to Australia to testify in a
government inquiry, answering questions instead in February 2016 by video link
from a Rome hotel.
The
cardinal has acknowledged “catastrophic” errors on the church’s part in its
handling of abuse complaints, but denied any personal wrongdoing.
So
far, the Vatican has been largely supportive of Pell. Last year, when police
confirmed that the cardinal was under investigation for sex offenses, Francis
said it was important not to rush to judgment.
"It's
in the hands of the justice system, and one cannot judge before the justice
system,” the pontiff said then. “After the justice system speaks, I will
speak."
Some
Vatican watchers, however, pointed to a degree of papal distancing from Pell. A
Vatican spokesman said Thursday that effective immediately the cardinal would
not be taking place in liturgical celebrations.
The Vatican, which is a sovereign
city-state in the middle of Rome, has sheltered church officials from criminal
allegations.
Under
previous popes, it sheltered officials wanted by other countries. That included
even Italy, which was rebuffed when it sought the handover of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus,
the then-head of the Vatican bank who was wanted for questioning about the
fraudulent bankruptcy of a private Italian bank.
But Francis took a tougher line toward
Jozef Wesolowski, a former archbishop who was accused of paying shoeshine boys
for sex while serving as papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic. He was
recalled and defrocked but was found dead of natural causes in 2015 in his
Vatican quarters before he could face a judge.
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