Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican's financial chief, said on Thursday that he is looking forward to appearing in court and is innocent of the child sex abuse charges pressed against him in his country.
Earlier on Thursday, Australia's Victoria State Police charged Cardinal Pell, 76, with multiple sex offences and summoned him to court in July, reports Efe news.
Pell, a senior representative of the Australian Catholic Church, is suspected to have sexually abused children when he served as a priest in the city of Ballarat (1976-80) and as Archbishop of Melbourne (1996-2001).
The Cardinal complained that he had been subjected to "relentless character assassination" during a two-year investigation into the "false" claims.
He told a news conference at the Holy See: "I'm looking forward finally to having my day in court."
"I am innocent of these charges, they are false. The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me," the BBC quoted Pell as saying.
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He said the Pope had granted him a leave of absence to fight the charges.
Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said the charges were presented to Pell's representatives in Melbourne with a request for the Cardinal to appear before a city court on July 18.
Pell is based in the Vatican and is considered the third-ranking official in the Holy See.
In October 2016, Pell was questioned in Rome by Australian police officers about the accusations of sexual assault committed between 1976 and 2001.
Among the allegations is the case of two men who claimed that Pell touched their private parts in the 1970s, while another man said he has seen Pell expose himself to young boys.
This is not the first time the senior Vatican official has been accused of sex offences.
In 2002, a man claimed to have been sexually abused by the cardinal in 1961, when he was 12 years old and Pell was training to become a priest.
Investigators acquitted Pell, who in February gave testimony via video conference to an Australian government commission probing child sexual abuses in religious, public and social organisations and institutions.
--IANS
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