Explainer: high-profile cases of sexual offences within the Catholic Church

Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell on Tuesday became the highest-ranked Catholic ever to be sent to trial for sex offences, adding to a series scandals facing the church globally. Here is a rundown of notable cases:

Australia

Cardinal George Pell, the third highest member of the Vatican hierarchy, has been ordered to stand trial on “multiple” historical sex charges, which he denies.

His case coincided with a public inquiry that found that 7 per cent of priests were presumed to have committed paedophilia in Australia between 1950 and 2010.

Austria

Two scandals forced the Vatican to revoke two high-ranking ultra-conservative clerics, Viennese Archbishop Hans Hermann Groer in 1995 and the bishop of Sankt-Poelten, Kurt Krenn in 2004.

Belgium

In 2010, the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after acknowledging sex abuse of two nephews. Since 2012 the Catholic Church in Belgium has received hundreds of complaints and paid almost €4.13 million (US$5 million) in compensation.

Canada

In the late 1980s, a huge scandal broke out regarding the mistreatment of children at an orphanage in Newfoundland in the 1950s-1960s.

Chile

Some 80 members of the Chilean clergy have been implicated in a series of sex abuse affairs over the past few years. Controversy over the bishop Juan Barros, accused of covering for a paedophile priest, marred Pope Francis’ trip to the country in January 2018 when he hugged and defended the bishop.

France

In 2016 the case of priest Bernard Preynat, accused of abusing scouts in his Lyon parish, tainted the image of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin for allegedly covering up for him. Barbarin will be tried along with six co-defendants in January 2019.

Germany

Since 2010, hundreds of cases of sex abuse against children or adolescents in religious institutions have emerged. The most high-profile ones involve Jesuit-run Canisius college in Berlin.

Ireland

Accusations against Catholic institutions began to emerge early in the millennium, and covered several decades prior to that. The number of underaged victims was estimated at around 14,500. Several bishops and priests accused of committing or covering up the abuse have been punished.

Mexico

Mexican bishop Gonzalo Galvan Castillo was forced to resign in 2015 after being accused of protecting a paedophile priest. The late founder of the ultraconservative Legion of Christ congregation, Marcial Maciel, was forced to resign in 2006, was accused of committing sexual abuses of minors.

The Netherlands

In late 2011, a study found that several tens of thousands of minors had been sexually abused within the Dutch Catholic Church institutions between 1945 and 2010. Some 800 suspects have been identified.

Poland

In 2013 Pope Francis sacked the Vatican nuncio, or ambassador, to the Dominican Republic, Poland’s Jozef Wesolowski who was charged with sexually abusing minors. He died in 2015 on the eve of his trial.

United States

Between 1950 and 2013, the Catholic Church in the US received 17,000 complaints from people who said they had suffered sexual abuse from 6,400 clerics between 1950 and 1980. In 2012, specialists in contact with the Vatican mooted the figure of 100,000 cases of child sex abuse in the US.

Among the senior church members forced to resign for protecting paedophile priests were Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston and Roger Mahony in Los Angeles.