Sharp divorce over Australian court acquittal of Cardinal accused of sexual abuse against children

The acquittal of the Australian Supreme Court last Tuesday, Cardinal George Bell, from the charge of sexual violations against children, sparked sharp divisions in the country and the world, and a royal commission of inquiry revealed today that since the 1970s, the cardinal has covered up sexual assaults against children and has not expelled the clergy involved.

The Cardinal was sentenced to six years' imprisonment - he spent more than 12 months - after it was proven to a jury that he was guilty of assaulting two children at the age of 13 at the Melbourne Cathedral at a time when the city's archbishop was in the 1990s.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry had been working for five years to find out how religious institutions dealt with sexual abuse of children, to produce compelling results in 2017. However, it did not disclose the results of its investigation regarding Bill, who was the Vatican Minister of Economy, with the aim of not affecting the position of the jury in the trial relating to Charges against him in sexual abuse against children.

It was published after the Supreme Court was acquitted
and Bell was sentenced in 2019 to six years in prison for links to rape and sexual assaults dating back to the 1990s, but the 78-year-old Cardinal is now acquitted by the highest Australian judicial authority and it is thus possible to publish the royal commission's findings.

Today, the commission showed that it had been established that Bell, one of the most influential bishops of the Vatican in the past, had not only been aware since 1973 of sexual violations against children and had not only moved a finger against its perpetrators, but had also worked to conceal it.  

The Wall Street Journal said the Supreme Court's acquittal of Bell from a charge of sexual abuse against children had led to a sharp split in public opinion in Australia and around the world, between supporter and angered, and the case left the leaders of the Catholic Church in a difficult situation where they continue to deal with a protracted crisis because of the violations of clergy .

Divisions of the Judicial System
The newspaper commented that - in addition to discussions between Catholic believers and in the wider civil society - the Bell case revealed divisions in the Australian legal system, between state and appellate courts.

The Catholic Church in Australia is still facing a number of civil suits, including one from the family of one of the children whose father said through his lawyer on Tuesday that he was "disgusted" by the Supreme Court ruling that shaken his belief in the country's criminal justice system.