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RELIGION

The Latest: Australia cardinal in court on sex-abuse charges

Associated Press
Published | Updated
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MELBOURNE, Australia – The Latest on Australian Cardinal George Pell, who is in court on sexual abuse charges (all times local):

9:45 a.m.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Vatican official to be charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis, arrived Wednesday for an appearance in a Melbourne court where he will eventually stand trial on sexual abuse charges spanning decades.

Magistrate Belinda Wallington on Tuesday ordered Australia's highest-ranking Catholic to appear at Victoria state County Court after ruling that prosecutors' case was strong enough to warrant a trial by jury.

Pell is expected to face a brief preliminary hearing in which a trial date could be set.

Wallington dismissed about half the charges that had been heard in a four-week preliminary hearing. The details of the allegations and the number of charges have not been made public.

Pell, 76, has pleaded not guilty.

8 p.m.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Vatican official to be charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis, on Tuesday officially denied charges of sexual abuse spanning decades after his lawyers failed to sway a court to dismiss them.

Australia's highest-ranking Catholic will appear for the first time on Wednesday in the Victoria state County Court where he has been ordered to stand trial at a date yet to be set.

Lawyers for Pell, Pope Francis' finance minister, have been fighting the allegations since before he was charged last June with allegations of sexual abuse against multiples people in Victoria from the time he was a priest in his hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s until the 1990s, when he was archbishop of Melbourne.