Wearing his clerical collar, George Pell attended a hearing at Melbourne Magistrates Court to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to put him on trial.
The cardinal’s committal hearing before Magistrate Belinda Wallington is scheduled to take up to a month, with testimony of alleged victims to be suppressed from publication.
Pell arrived by car and was flanked by police and one of his lawyers, Paul Galbally, as he walked through a large group of media and into the court security screening area.
He remained silent as he entered.
He emptied his pockets before walking through a security metal detector and a security guarded frisked him in a routine procedure.
Other security guards ensured the public kept their distance from the 76-year-old cleric in the foyers of the seven-floor downtown court house in Australia’s second-largest city where he was once archbishop.
Pope Francis’ former finance minister was charged in June of last year with sexually abusing multiple people in his Australian home state of Victoria.
The details of the allegations against the cardinal have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as “historical” sexual assault offences – meaning the crimes that are alleged to have occurred decades ago.
The case places both the cardinal and the Pope in potentially perilous territory.
For Pell, the charges are a…
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