George Pell remanded into custody

Cardinal George Pell was remanded into custody on Wednesday for child sex offences. George Pell is Australia’s most senior Catholic cardinal and a former top adviser to Pope Francis. A jury found that he had sexually abused two 13-year-olds in 1996 and 1997, in the rooms of a Melbourne cathedral. George Pell, the Vatican treasurer is the third most senior Catholic in the world.

Pell will be formally sentenced on March 13. Pell was found guilty of child sex abuse in December. The guilty verdict was revealed on Tuesday after a court suppression order was dropped.

The pre-sentencing hearing was told Pell’s child sex crimes each carry maximum jail terms of 10 years. Prosecutor Mark Gibson SC told Chief Judge Peter Kidd that Pell’s offending involved two vulnerable boys and should be classed as serious.

“These acts … were, in our submission, humiliating and degrading towards each boy and gave rise to distress in each boy,” he said. “There has been a breach of trust in this case in the sense that Cardinal Pell was the driving force and in charge of this cathedral and these two choristers were a cog in the cathedral wheel … in Sunday masses.”

Photo Courtesy: Google/ images are subject to copyright