Court in Australia finds Cardinal guilty of sexual offences

Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty by a court in Australia of sexual offences against minors in his country, making him the highest-ranking Catholic figure to receive such a conviction.

Reports say Pell who pleaded not guilty to the charges leveled against him has lodged an appeal against his conviction as he is due to be sentenced on Wednesday. .

A jury had earlier found Pell, 77, guilty of abusing two choir boys in the rooms of a Melbourne cathedral in 1996

A second jury unanimously convicted him of one charge of sexually penetrating a child under 16, and four counts of committing an indecent act on a child under 16.

Cardinal Pell’s conviction comes days after Catholic Pontiff Pope Francis pledged that the church will stop covering up crimes of paedophile priests.

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Pope Francis made the pledge in a speech marking the end of the Vatican’s anti-child abuse conference.

“No abuse must ever be covered up, as was usual in the past, or overlooked, as covering up abuses favours the spread of evil and adds a further layer of scandal,” the pope said on Sunday in a closing speech to the four-day conference.

He called on for an “all-out battle” against the sexual abuse of minors by clergy, a crime which he called abominable and that should be “erased from the face of the earth”.

The Catholic church has been hit with several scandals of sex abuse of minors by priests around the world, with recent cases affecting Australia, Chile, Germany and the United States.

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