Third-ranking Catholic Church official charged with child abuse

Card. George Pell

Leave it to the Catholic Church to give me something to blog about just as I’m busy with something else. Also leave it to them to make it about their inability to stop raping children, as the third highest-ranking member of the Family Church has just been charged with several counts of the usual:

Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic and the third-ranking official in the Vatican, has been charged with multiple sexual offences by police.

The charges were served on Pell’s legal representatives in Melbourne on Thursday and they have been lodged also at Melbourne magistrates court. He will appear at Melbourne magistrates court on 18 July.

“Cardinal Pell is facing multiple charges and there are multiple complainants,” Victoria police’s deputy commissioner Shane Patton said.

Pell is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be charged in the Catholic church’s long-running sexual abuse scandal.

More details from The Australian (taken from Joe.My.God. since the original’s locked behind a paywall):

Allegations raised in the past 18 months include that he assaulted boys at a Ballarat pool in the 1970s and allegations of assault at St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne, when he was archbishop.

Cardinal Pell was a parish priest in the Diocese of Ballarat, where he launched his extraordinary career. However, the diocese was riddled with hundreds and possibly thousands of cases of abuse in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He had never been charged with any offences.

And the dominoes continue to fall. At this point, it might be simpler to assume every Church official is guilty and wheedle out the innocents. Might make for shorter work.

I don’t know what about the Church attracts so many child abusers, but whatever the answer is, I doubt it reflects particularly well on the Church and the people who run it.