The decision by the High Court of Australia comes nearly a year after a unanimous jury found Cardinal George Pell guilty of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral in the late 1990s, shortly after Pell became archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city.

Pope Francis’s former finance minister was sentenced to six years in prison in March.

He is no longer a member of Francis’s Council of Cardinals or a Vatican official.

The Victoria state Court of Appeal rejected his appeal in August.

Pell, 78, is in a Melbourne prison. He did not attend the High Court in Canberra to hear the decision.

Two of the seven justices – Michelle Gordon and James Edelman – heard Pell’s application for an appeal and unanimously approved it for a hearing by the full bench.

The court rejects around 90% of such applications.

An appeal hearing cannot happen before the judges return from their summer break in early February.

Pell’s lawyers argued in their 12-page application for a High Court appeal that two state appeals court judges made an error in dismissing his appeal in August.

The judges made a mistake by requiring Pell to prove the abuse was impossible, rather than putting the onus of proof on prosecutors, the lawyers said.

They also said the two judges erred in finding the jury’s guilty verdicts were reasonable.

Pell’s lawyers argued there was reasonable doubt about…

Rob Flello has told Premier he is worried about Christians’ future in politics and will now not vote for the Lib Dems.

He’s also seeking legal advice about his treatment.

Flello was stood down as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Stoke-on-Trent in the election, 36 hours after he was voted in by the local Lib Dem branch.

He previously represented the Labour Party as an MP in the same area but lost his seat in 2017 and then left the party this year because of its leadership.

The politician said he was disappointed to see the statement issued by the Lib Dem press team to the local BBC station that said he was no longer going to be their candidate in the constituency.

The statement said: “We do our best to screen candidates in our approval process. In this case it only became clear over the past few days how greatly his values diverge from ours.”

Speaking to Premier (full interview below), Flello said: “In my view, this is just blatant discrimination on the grounds of my religious beliefs and deeply, deeply troubling as to what the implications are for Christians across the UK who will be making a decision in 29 days’ time about who they vote for and quite clearly there is a problem with practicing Christians and, it will appear, the Liberal Democrat Party.

“I have been a member of parliament for 12 years, I have well known, well documented view on issues…

Some £1,000 raised for the Royal British Legion was stolen from St Andrew’s Church, Backwell after thieves smashed down the door of the rectory and stole keys to access the main church building before breaking into the safe.

Donations were made by more than 300 members of the congregation at a Remembrance service last Sunday.

Rev Dr Katy Garner, who was licensed as Rector for St Andrew’s in July, said she was “sickened” by the news in a statement on the Dioceses Facebook page: “I sat on Sunday in the services alongside a disabled veteran from World War II and the thought that anyone could take money from these men and women and the thousands who are helped by the Royal British Legion is just sickening.

“We are all deeply upset.”

The doors of the rectory and the church office sustained considerable damage but the main 16th century building was not affected.

Police are investigating the incident, dusting for fingerprints and carrying out a search of the area.

A special service will be held in the church next Sunday morning to take up a second collection for the Royal British Legion.

An online fundraising campaign has also been launched to help recoup the stolen funds.

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Data from Stewardship – an organisation supporting over 250,000 people in missionary projects – shows most full-time volunteers in Christian ministry forgo basic needs and fail to meet financial demands throughout the year.

Chief generosity officer Daniel Jones told Premier there’s a broad range of reasons workers can struggle to make ends meet: “Often it’s with incidental expenses. Often it will be getting by on just enough, relying on sometimes some direct support from close family or friends.

“But it’s when some of those bigger expenses hit that problems occur – the car breaks down, there isn’t anything in the savings pot to cover a rent increase, etc.

“For people working overseas often it might be cases of illness where there isn’t the NHS that they can fall back on and therefore having to pay for additional medical costs.”

The organisation have launched a new campaign to provide volunteers with additional support over the Christmas period.

Jones says the essential needs of individual workers can vary depending on a number of factors.

“We’ll look at which part of the world they’re working in, the nature of the work that they’re doing, the particular expenses that might be involved, whether a lot of travel might be required, the number of children they need to support and come up with a very specific calculation for each Christian worker.”

There can be stigma in…

The Internet Watch Foundation made the call ahead of a conference led by the Pope in Vatican City on Thursday to focus on fighting the problem.

Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the Cambridge-based charity which works to remove images and videos of child abuse from the internet, said religious leaders need to do “a lot more” to face up to “what has happened in the past”.

The National Crime Agency estimates 144,000 users from the UK are active on the dark web, looking for images of sexual abuse.

Less than 1 per cent of content is hosted in the UK, but the demand is “significant”, the charity said.

Speaking ahead of the two-day event where the charity will present its research, Ms Hargreaves said: “It is something to be applauded that all the different religious leaders are getting together to talk about the problem and stepping up, although there is a lot more that can be done, and a lot more public acknowledgement as well of what has happened in the past.”

Religious leaders have a “great deal of influence” and their help in combating child abuse online would be “invaluable”, Ms Hargreaves said, adding: “The Catholic Church and other religions have huge influence, they are meant to be taking a moral lead.”

After an address by the Pope, the conference will hear from Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed al Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, Queen Silvia…