You'd have to have been living under a rock not to have heard about this one already.
The Age covered it really well today, as did
The Guardian if you want something a little more forthright (although it comes with the warning that it is quite graphic).
Cardinal Pell is Australia's highest ranking Catholic in history. He was the third most senior figure in the Vatican and was a close confidant of the past three popes, and in particular the current pope, Francis. He was the member of an advisory committee of 9 cardinals who report directly to the Pope. It is important to note that he was appointed to all of these positions whilst accusations of child sexual abuse hung over his head, and is technically in these positions but "on leave". He was first accused of sexual abuse of children in the early 2000s, which was not properly investigated. The church employed a former judge to investigate the issue, who concluded that he both believed the victims and Cardinal Pell, which the church interpreted as an exoneration of the Cardinal.
Moreover, although his sexual abuse of children was only substantiated in December last year, Cardinal Pell is on record as showing an almost psychopathic disregard for the victims of sexual abuse. He is known for his establishment of the Melbourne Response, a system of policies that protected the church from accusations of child sexual abuse and that offered victims of sexual abuse paltry compensation for their commitment to refrain from disclosing their sexual abuse. Many victims were coerced into signing these agreements and were manipulate by the church, through Pell, to believe that there were no other avenues to be compensated. This was particularly the case when the so-called Ellis defence was an accepted legal defence, which prevented individuals who had been abused by the church from suing the church.
Pell was in charge of priests in the Ballarat region, which was a hot-bed for paedophilia. Whilst many of his fellow priests from the region have since been charged with sexual abuse of children whilst he was in charge, Pell has consistently (and many would say unreasonably) denied ever having heard reports of the abuse. He later changed his mind about that, saying that he had heard rumours but declined to hear anymore of them because they didn't particularly interest him (his genuine words).
Despite all of this, Cardinal Pell has been one of the most conservative voices in the Catholic church and, certainly in recent years, has been the most powerful conservative within the church. From this position he has preached the centrality of celibacy to the church and has consistently decried homosexual acts as sinful and anathema to the churches values. Indeed, he has gone on record as suggesting that gay people commit suicide at higher rates because of their homosexuality being sinful. All the while, Cardinal Pell was breaking his vows of chastity and performing "homosexual acts" by raping male children.
Pell has consistently denied allegations of his sexual abuse. Notwithstanding the fact that he is now a convicted child rapist, the catholic church are tipped to forego defrocking him (i.e. kicking him out of the church), which seemingly moronic is at least consistent with the church's craven and callous defence of paedophiles. Indeed, this is just the latest step for an organisation that has simultaneously preached about the importance of foregoing sex and only having it in the confines of a heterosexual marriage whilst providing a safe haven for monsters who rape children.
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