Child-rapist Cardinal Pell to be sentenced

ABC: Associated Press, 3/12/19; Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, Crystal Q., Wisdom Quarterly

Sex abuse convictions of Australia cardinal prove polarizing

You can rape children, just sign here in blood.

MELBOURNE, Australia - The most senior Catholic to be convicted of child sex abuse will be sentenced to prison in Australia on Wednesday in a landmark case that has polarized observers.

I'm not the only one! The Pope is my friend.

Some described the prosecution as proof the church is no longer above the law, while others suspect Cardinal George Pell has been made a scapegoat for the church's [many rapist, child molesting, homosexual priests and Vatican officials'] sins.

Pope Francis' former finance minister, who had been described as the third-highest ranking Catholic in the Vatican, has spent two weeks in a Melbourne remand jail cell since a sentencing hearing in the Victoria state County Court on Feb. 27 in which his lawyers conceded the 77-year-old must spend time behind bars.

I have profound remorse for gay sex abuse.

Cardinal Pell had been convicted in December of orally raping a 13-year-old choirboy and indecently dealing with [groping, raping, further molesting?] the boy and the boy's 13-year-old friend in the late 1990s, months after Pell became archbishop of Melbourne and initiated a compensation scheme for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

A court order had prohibited media from reporting on the verdict until two weeks ago, when prosecutors abandoned a second trial on charges that Pell had groped two boys in a public swimming pool in the 1970s.

Chief Judge Peter Kidd will sentence Pell on five convictions, each carrying a potential 10-year maximum sentence.

Il Papa, they want to investigate us!

Most of the sentences for each conviction are likely to be served concurrently. Pell's sentence will also reflect court standards of two decades ago, when his crimes were committed. In those days, judges placed less weight on the damage done to children by sexual abuse.

In an unusual move for an Australian court that acknowledges intense international interest in the case, the judge will allow his sentencing remarks to be broadcast on live television.

After centuries of impunity, cardinals from Australia to Chile and points in between are facing justice in both the Vatican and government courts for their own sexual misdeeds or for having shielded abusers under their watch.

I protect rapist-priests in Chile for Vatican.

Last week, France's senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, was convicted of failing to report a known pedophile priest to police. He was given a six-month suspended sentence.

Pope Francis last month defrocked the onetime leader of the American church after an internal investigation determined Cardinal Theodore McCarrick sexually molested children and adult men. It was the first time a cardinal had been defrocked over the child abuse scandal. More