# Oh poor George (Cardinal Pell)...might have been easier to come home!

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-poor-george-cardinal-pell-might-have-been-easier-to-come-home/746315
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 17, 2016, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-poor-george-cardinal-pell-might-have-been-easier-to-come-home/746315 "2016-02-17T03:42:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
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### Author: ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2018, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-poor-george-cardinal-pell-might-have-been-easier-to-come-home/746315/383 "2018-05-01T14:04:30Z")

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Updating this thread:

> [@](#):
>
> George Pell will be the most senior Catholic leader to face a jury after being committed to stand trial on multiple historic sexual assault charges. In a decision that will ring loud through the Vatican and around the religious world, Australia’s most senior Catholic and the man who a year ago oversaw management of the Vatican’s finances was on Tuesday committed to stand trial on half the charges he faced, involving multiple accusers. However, magistrate Belinda Wallington struck out a series of serious charges at the start of her ruling, finding there was insufficient evidence for him to be convicted by a jury.
> 
> Ms Wallington committed the 76-year-old on charges against multiple complainants, involving alleged sexual offending at a swimming pool in the 1970s in Ballarat, where the accused man was then working as a priest; and at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in 1990s, when he was the then Archbishop of Melbourne.

> **[Cardinal George Pell to stand trial on historical sex assault charges](https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/cardinal-george-pell-to-stand-trial-on-historical-sex-assault-charges-20180501-p4zckv.html)**
>
> Australia's highest-ranking Catholic has been committed to stand trial before a jury on multiple historical sexual assault charges.

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