The Latest: Pope on Pell: Let justice take its course
Pell, who has long been dogged by allegations of mishandling cases of abusive clergy when he was archbishop of Melbourne and later Sydney, more recently has been accused of child abuse himself when he was a young priest.
Two men, now in their 40s, said he touched them inappropriately under the guise of play at a swimming pool during the late 1970s, according to Australian media who reported the men have given statements to Victoria police.
During his trip to Poland, he also visited the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, celebrated a Mass celebrating Poland's 1,050 years of Roman Catholicism, and held several gatherings with young Catholics who numbered in the hundreds of thousands around the host city of Krakow.
The Polish president and other officials bid Francis farewell and the white-robed pontiff then walked up the steps to the plane, which also carried dozens of journalists back to Rome.
Polish security officials are no doubt breathing a collective sigh of relief that the gathering in which the pope encountered huge crowds day after day passed without incident.
Heavy rain has led officials to shorten the farewell ceremony for Pope Francis in Krakow, southern Poland, where he has spent five days attending a global Catholic youth pep rally.
Polish police say no major security incidents have been reported during Pope Francis' five-day visit to the country, which has been protected by top-level security measures including sniffer dogs and anti-terrorism forces with machine guns.
The slaying of an 85-year-old French priest by two extremists in Normandy on Tuesday had compounded security fears surrounding Francis' trip, which were already high due to a string of violent attacks in France and Germany.
Ciarka said that uniformed and plain-clothes security forces were deployed on boats on the Vistula River, in helicopters that flew around the crowds and on land.
Francis spoke Sunday as he wrapped up a