• George Pell, Australia's most senior Catholic cleric, has been convicted of sexually assaulting two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996 and 1997 at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
• Pell was the archbishop of Melbourne at the time and until recently, also one of Pope Francis' closest advisors.
• The conviction was handed down by the Victorian County Court in December last year but a suppression order prevented media outlets in Australia from reporting his identity until now.
• Pell's legal team indicated they would appeal the conviction. He will attend a pre-sentence hearing on Wednesday and is expected to be sentenced in the next two weeks.

George Pell, Australia's most senior Catholic cleric, has been convicted of sexually assaulting two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996 and 1997 at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Pell was the archbishop of Melbourne at the time and until recently, also one of Pope Francis' closest advisors. His conviction will send shockwaves through the Catholic Church, which has been trying to deal with the implications and widespread damage of institutional sexual abuse.

The conviction was handed down by the Victorian County Court in December last year but a suppression order prevented media outlets in Australia from reporting his identity until now.

Pell was found guilty of sexual penetration of a child under 16 years old and four counts of an indecent act with or in the presence of a child, according to the ABC.

Pell's legal team indicated they would appeal the conviction. He will attend a pre-sentence hearing on Wednesday and is expected to be sentenced in the next two weeks.

The Sydney Morning Herald has the full details » </s> MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian court on Wednesday upheld the sexual abuse conviction of Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic leader ever found guilty in a criminal court in the church’s child sex abuse crisis.

The cardinal, 78, once an adviser to Pope Francis, was sentenced to six years in prison in March.

“He will continue to serve his sentence,” said Chief Justice Anne Ferguson of the Supreme Court of the state of Victoria in Melbourne, who presided over the case with two other top judges.

Cardinal Pell was found guilty in December of molesting two 13-year-old boys after a Sunday Mass in 1996 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, and groping one of them again months later. A gag order meant the verdict was not unsealed until February, after a second trial involving Cardinal Pell was canceled.

The case has garnered broad attention both for its secrecy and the precedent it set. Abuse survivors had hailed the conviction as proof that judicial systems can hold even the most senior prelates accountable in the global child sexual abuse scandal that has stained the church’s image. </s> An Australian court on Wednesday sentenced former Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell to six years in jail for sexually abusing two choir boys in a Melbourne cathedral in 1996, Reuters reported. The 77-year-old is the highest ranking Catholic priest to be convicted of child sex offences and has also faced allegations that he covered up complaints of child sexual abuse by priests.

Pell was held guilty in December. He has maintained his innocence and has filed an appeal on three grounds, which will be heard in June.

“In my view, your conduct was permeated by staggering arrogance,” County Court of Victoria Chief Judge Peter Kidd said in the sentencing. “Viewed overall, I consider your moral culpability across both episodes to be high.”

Pell was ordered to sign the sex offender register and was sentenced to a minimum of three years and eight months in jail, AFP reported. You “may not live to be released from prison” the judge told the priest, accusing him of a “brazen and forceful sexual attack on the two victims.” The cardinal faced a maximum 50 years in prison for the five charges.

Prosecutors accused Pell of forcing the boys, whom he found drinking communion wine in a cathedral room at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, into “indecent acts”. Pell then was archbishop of Melbourne. He allegedly abused one of the boys in 1997 again. One of the accusers died in 2014 of an accidental heroin overdose, having never disclosed the abuse.

However, the judge said Pell was “not to be made a scapegoat for any failings or perceived failings of the Catholic Church”. His appeal has been scheduled for a hearing on June 5 and 6.

“A small amount of justice has been done today,” an advocate for the victims said outside the court. “I don’t think six years is long enough.” </s> Australian Cardinal George Pell, who used to be the third most powerful figure in the Vatican, was found guilty of child sexual abuses by a jury in Melbourne, judicial sources announced Tuesday.

Pell, the highest-ranking priest of the Australian Catholic Church, raped a 13-year-old altar boy in the 1990s and sexually abused another boy of the same age at the prestigious St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne. </s> Former Vatican treasurer, and most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual assault, maintains innocence after losing appeal

The most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, has lost his appeal against his conviction, but maintains he is innocent.

In a brief statement issued after the decision the Vatican reiterated that Pell maintained his innocence, and that it was now “Pell’s right to appeal to the high court”.

“At this time, together with the church in Australia, the Holy See confirms its closeness to the victims of sexual abuse and its commitment to pursue, through the competent ecclesiastical authorities, those members who commit such abuse,” the statement also said. No mention was made of stripping Pell of his cardinal title.

On Wednesday the Victorian court of appeal in Melbourne, Australia, dismissed Pell’s appeal, with two of the three appellant judges describing the complainant who accused Pell as a compelling, truthful witness.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Vatican’s response. Photograph: Declaration of the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, 21.08.2019

The jury had not been unreasonable in convicting Pell on one count of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16 and four counts of an indecent act against a child under the age of 16, the chief justice, Anne Ferguson, and appeal court president justice, Chris Maxwell, found.

A third judge, Mark Weinberg, disagreed, finding the complainant was inclined to embellish aspects of his testimony and that he could not exclude the possibility that some of what he said was concocted. But in the court of appeal judges are required only to reach a majority decision.

Pell was escorted back to jail, where he will continue to serve a six-year sentence for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996, while he was archbishop of Melbourne. After Sunday solemn mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, Pell orally raped one of the boys in the priest’s sacristy and indecently assaulted both of them. Pell offended again against one of the boys about a month later, when he grabbed the boy’s genitals in the church corridor, once more after Sunday solemn mass.

Victim advocates cheer as Pell appeal rejected: 'Hallelujah – proof there is a God' Read more

“Throughout his evidence, [the complainant] came across as someone who was telling the truth,” Ferguson said. “He did not seek to embellish his evidence or tailor it in a manner favourable to the prosecution. As might have been expected, there were some things which he could remember and many things which he could not. And his explanations of why that was so had the ring of truth.”

Play Video 1:21 'We are not used to this': victim advocates welcome rejection of Cardinal Pell's appeal – video

The judges unanimously agreed that Pell’s other two grounds of appeal, which concerned legal issues, failed. He will be eligible for parole in 2022.

Through his lawyer the complainant issued a statement, saying: “Some commentators have suggested that I reported to the police somehow for my own personal gain.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. I have risked my privacy, my health, my wellbeing, my family. I have not instructed any solicitor in relation to a claim for compensation. This is not about money and never had been. Although my faith has taken a battering it is still a part of my life, and part of the lives of my loved ones.”

The second victim died of a heroin overdose at the age of 30 in 2014, and his father shed tears after the appeal dismissal.

In a statement, Pell’s spokeswoman said the cardinal was “obviously disappointed with the decision today”.

“However his legal team will thoroughly examine the judgment in order to determine a special leave application to the high court. Cardinal Pell maintains his innocence. We thank his many supporters.”

When he learned his fate in the court, Pell bowed his head slightly, but did not show any expression.

Pell was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2005 for his service to the Catholic church and for his work in education and social justice. Following the court decision, Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, said he believed Pell would be stripped of those honours.

“That is a process that is done independently, and that course will now follow,” he said.

The archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, called upon the public to respect the court’s decision. He said that his thoughts and prayers were with the man who had brought Pell before the courts.

At the verdict George Pell didn't flinch; he just pursed his lips a little. He was going back to jail | David Marr Read more

“I humbly acknowledge it has been a challenging time for him, and I stand ready to offer pastoral care and spiritual help, should he seek it,” Comensoli said. Pell, too, would receive care. “In Christian charity, I will ensure that Cardinal Pell is provided pastoral and spiritual support while he serves the remainder of his sentence, according to the teaching and example of Jesus to visit those in prison,” he said.

The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, offered similar sentiments, saying: “This has been and remains a most difficult time for survivors of child sexual abuse and those who support them”.

“We acknowledge the pain that those abused by clergy have experienced through the long process of the trials and appeal of Cardinal Pell,” Coleridge said. “We also acknowledge that this judgment will be distressing to many people.”

The decision and reasons from the appellant judges ran to some 300 pages, but Ferguson read a summary of the judgment to a court packed with media, survivors and Pell supporters on Wednesday.

“Cardinal Pell’s conviction and this appeal have attracted widespread attention, both in Australia and beyond,” she said.

“He is a senior figure in the Catholic church and is internationally well known. As the trial judge, Chief Judge Kidd, commented when sentencing Cardinal Pell, there has been vigorous and sometimes emotional criticism of the cardinal and he has been publicly vilified in some sections of the community. There has also been strong public support for the cardinal by others. Indeed, it is fair to say that his case has divided the community.”

She said it was important that Pell was not made a scapegoat for any perceived failings of the Catholic church to address child sexual abuse. But she was unequivocal about her and Maxwell’s judgment in relation to the five charges on which Pell was convicted.

“The complainant was a very compelling witness, was clearly not a liar, was not a fantasist and was a witness of truth,” she said. </s> Cardinal George Pell, Former Vatican Official, Sentenced To 6 Years In Prison

Australian Cardinal George Pell, 77, a former leading Vatican official who last month was convicted of sexually abusing two boys, has been sentenced to six years in prison. He will be eligible for parole after three years and eight months.

During the sentencing hearing, Victoria state County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd acknowledged the disgraced cleric may not live to serve the full sentence.

"I am conscious that the term of imprisonment, which I am about to impose upon you, carries with it a real, as distinct from theoretical, possibility that you may not live to be released from prison," Kidd said to Pell.

The prospect of facing jail at Pell's advanced age "must be an awful state of affairs," Kidd added.

Pell was convicted in December of five sexual offenses committed against two 13-year-old choirboys during an incident in 1996 at Melbourne's grandest cathedral, when he was archbishop.

A 12-member jury unanimously found him guilty of exposing himself to the two boys, fondling them and forcing one to perform oral sex on him. The jury also convicted Pell of indecently assaulting one of the boys more than a month later.

A court-issued gag order had suppressed media reporting of the news until last month.

Following the sentencing on Wednesday, Vivian Waller, a lawyer for one of the victims, read a written statement by her client outside the court.

"It is hard for me to allow myself to feel the gravity of this moment, the moment when the sentence is handed down, the moment when justice is done," the man wrote. "It is hard for me, for the time being, to take comfort in this outcome. I appreciate that the court has acknowledged what was inflicted upon me as a child. However, there is no rest for me. Everything is overshadowed by the forthcoming appeal."

The other victim died in 2014 of a heroin overdose. He was 31 and never reported the abuse.

Pell denies the allegations, and his lawyers argue he has been made a scapegoat for the failings of the Catholic Church regarding sexual abuse by priests, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reported.

Pell has filed an appeal, and the court will determine if there are sufficient grounds for it to be heard. A court date has been set for June 5.

In court on Wednesday, Pell was told he will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.

He is the most senior Vatican leader ever charged with sexual abuse. He was selected by Pope Francis to run the Vatican's new economic ministry. </s> As a suppression order was lifted and Australian news outlets were finally able to report Cardinal George Pell had been found guilty of child sex crimes, the world was watching for the nation’s reaction.

Now the horrific verdict from December can be freely reported, anger is echoing across the globe in another shameful indictment on the Catholic Church.

“This is absolutely explosive,” CNN’s Anna Coren reported. “It will send shockwaves not just here in Australia but certainly around the world, right to the top of the Vatican.”

The BBC’s religion editor Martin Bashir said the news confirmed “the poison of sexual abuse has infected every level of the Roman Catholic Church”.

He said the guilty verdict for the most senior Australian Catholic and one of the pontiff’s closest aides was “a grave blow not just to the church but also to Pope Francis personally”.

He noted Pell was known by some officials as “Cardinal Rambo”, a term of endearment because of his bullish reform of Vatican finances.

Pell becomes the most senior Catholic cleric convicted of child sex crimes after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two choirboys at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the 1990s. An Australian jury unanimously found the 77-year-old guilty in December on one count of sexual abuse and four counts of indecent assault against the two boys.

Pell’s victims were two 13-year-old boys on scholarships to the prestigious St Kevin’s College. The court heard Pell, then Archbishop of Melbourne, caught the pair swigging sacramental wine after Sunday mass in December 1996. Pell chastised them and then exposed his penis from beneath his ceremonial robes before molesting them, the court heard.

One of the survivors, now in his 30s, brought the allegations to police after years of struggling to understand what he’d experienced. “He pulled out his penis and then grabbed (my friend’s) head,” said the man. “(My friend’s) head was being controlled and it was down near Archbishop Pell’s genitals.”

The former choirboy said Pell then turned to him. “I was pushed down and crouching or kneeling,” he said. “Archbishop Pell was standing. He was erect and he pushed it into my mouth.”

Pell then told the boy to take off his pants. “He started touching my genitalia, masturbating or trying to do something with my ­genitalia,” the man told the court. “Archbishop Pell was touching himself on his penis with his other hand.”

A month or so after Pell raped him, the man was sexually assaulted by Pell again when he pushed him against a cathedral wall and fondled his genitalia.

“Like many survivors I have experienced shame, loneliness, depression and struggle,” the survivor said in a statement released after the verdict was revealed. “It has taken me years to understand the impact upon my life.

“At some point we realise that we trusted someone we should have feared, and we fear those genuine relationships that we should trust.”

At the time of the verdict, newspapers ran front pages about the suppression order without revealing the details. “IT’S THE NATION’S BIGGEST STORY,” said the Daily Telegraph. “Yet we can’t publish it.”

Several international news outlets not bound by the restrictions did report on the verdict and were curious to see how Australia would react to news that many may have already read online but can now be freely discussed.

The Washington Post, which was one of these outlets, reported Australian-style gag orders imposed by judges “would be considered censorship” and a violation of the constitution in the United States. It observed such restrictions, also used in Britain, had become less effective now readers could access international media online, as well as rumour and misinformation on social media.

Gag orders are intended to prevent juries from being affected by reports of current or previous trials involving a defendant. Pell was due to face a separate trial later this year, involving several alleged victims, but the charges have been dropped. The trial would have centred on charges that he sexually assaulted two boys at Ballarat’s Eureka swimming pool in the late 1970s. Prosecutors alleged Pell molested the boys while playing with them and throwing them during visits to the pool but dropped the case after one accuser died, another charge was withdrawn and one was thrown out in the Magistrates’ Court.

“It is painful news that, we are well aware, has shocked many people, not just in Australia,” the Vatican said in a statement. “Cardinal Pell has reaffirmed his innocence and has the right to defend himself to the last degree.

“As we await the definitive verdict, we join the Australian bishops in praying for all victims of abuse, reaffirming our commitment to do everything possible so that the Church is a safe home for everyone, especially for children.”

On the order of Pope Francis, the “precautionary measures” already in place against Pell still stand, and he is “forbidden to exercise the public exercise of the ministry and have any contact in any form with minors”.

Three clergy abuse survivors who attended the summit told CBS News on Monday they still wanted to know why the Church had not laid out concrete steps to stop child sex abuse. Survivor and former nun Mary Dispenza said she did not “think our children are any safer now than four days ago, by what I heard”.

US victim support group SNAP said in a statement: “We hope that his conviction will not only bring healing to his victims in Australia but hope to survivors across the world who are yearning for accountability at the top levels of the church.

“We believe (the) conviction will make Australian children safer and parents and parishioners better informed about how to prevent sexual abuse.”

Many church officials believe Pell is innocent, with some suggesting charges were part of a conspiracy against the cardinal for trying to reform Church finances.

Pell has faced years of negative coverage over his response to paedophile priests including the notorious Gerald Ridsdale, a former friend of his who was convicted of the abuse and indecent assault of 65 children, some aged as young as four years old.

Pell’s hometown of Ballarat had such a high incidence of sexual abuse the city was used as a case study in the final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, to which Pell gave evidence in 2016 via video link from Rome.

Some believe Pell became a poster child for all that went wrong with the way the Catholic Church handled the abuse scandal.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was “deeply shocked” at the guilty verdict. “I respect the fact that this case is under appeal, but it is the victims and their families I am thinking of today, and all those who have suffered from sexual abuse by those they should have been able to trust but couldn’t,” he said.

“Their prolonged pain and suffering will not have ended today. While due process continues, our justice system has affirmed no Australian is above the law.”

Liberal MP Tony Abbott, a Catholic and vocal supporter of Pell in the past, has not commented.

Senators Derryn Hinch and Sarah Hanson-Young are among those calling for the cardinal to be stripped of his Companion of the Order of Australia. </s> The most senior Catholic to be convicted of child sex abuse was sentenced in an Australian court on Wednesday to 6 years in prison for molesting two choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral more than 20 years ago.

Victoria state County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd on Wednesday ordered Cardinal George Pell to serve a minimum of 3 years and 8 months before he is eligible for parole. Each of the five convictions against Pell carried a maximum possible sentence of 10 years each.

"In my view, your conduct was permeated by staggering arrogance," Kidd said in handing down the sentence.

Pope Francis' former finance minister had been convicted by a unanimous jury verdict in December of orally raping a 13-year-old choirboy and indecently dealing with the boy and the boy's 13-year-old friend in the late 1990s, months after Pell became archbishop of Melbourne. A court order had suppressed media reporting the news until last month.

The 77-year-old denies the allegations and will appeal his convictions in the Victoria Court of Appeal on June 5.

In explaining his sentencing decision, the judge said Pell had led an "otherwise blameless life." Kidd said he believed given Pell's age and lack of any other criminal record, the cardinal posed no risk of re-offending.

The judge also took pains to note that he was sentencing Pell for the offenses on which the cardinal had been convicted — and not for the sins of the Catholic Church.

"As I directed the jury who convicted you in this trail, you are not to be made a scapegoat for any failings or perceived failings of the Catholic Church," Kidd said.

But the judge also noted that Pell had abused his position of power and had shown no remorse for his crimes. Kidd described the assaults as egregious, degrading and humiliating to the victims.

After centuries of impunity, cardinals from Australia to Chile and points in between are facing justice in both the Vatican and government courts for their own sexual misdeeds or for having shielded abusers under their watch.

Last week, France's senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, was convicted of failing to report a known pedophile priest to police. Barbarin was given a six-month suspended sentence.

Pope Francis last month defrocked the onetime leader of the American church after an internal investigation determined Cardinal Theodore McCarrick sexually molested children and adult men. It was the first time a cardinal had been defrocked over the child abuse scandal.

One of Pell's victims died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 31 without ever reporting the abuse.

The survivor made a statement against Pell the following year to a police task force set up to investigate allegations that arose from a state parliamentary inquiry into handling of child abuse by religious and other nongovernment organizations. The task force also investigates allegations made to a similar national inquiry, called the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pell gave evidence by video link from Rome to the royal commission, the nations' highest level of inquiry, in 2016 about his time as a church leader in Melbourne and in his hometown of Ballarat.

The four-year royal commission found in its 2017 report that the Melbourne Archdiocese had ignored or covered up allegations of child abuse by seven priests in a bid to protect the church's reputation and avoid scandal.

The royal commission was critical of Pell's predecessor in Melbourne, Archbishop Frank Little, who died in 2008. It made no findings against Pell, saying in a redacted report that it would not publish information that could "prejudice current or future criminal or civil proceedings."

Australian police interviewed Pell about the survivor's allegations in a Rome hotel in 2016. Pell described the allegations at the time as "vile and disgusting conduct" that went against everything he believed in.

Pell voluntarily returned to Australia in 2017 to face an array of child abuse charges, most of which have since been dropped. The full details of those allegations were suppressed by court orders.

Pell was once the highest-ranking Catholic in Australia's second-largest city, where he is now a prisoner held in protective security. Pedophiles such as Pell are typically separated from the main prison populations in Australia.

Pell was 55 years old and had recently established a compensation plan for Melbourne's victims of clergy abuse when he abused the two boys at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1996. The survivor testified that Pell had walked in on the boys swigging altar wine in a back room after a Sunday Mass.

More than a month later, Pell abused the survivor again, squeezing the boy's genitals as they passed in a cathedral corridor after a Mass. </s> Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Vatican official to be convicted of sex abuse to date, has been sentenced to six years in prison for the “callous” assault of two choirboys in the late 1990s.

A former senior adviser to Pope Francis, Pell showed no reaction when Chief Judge Peter Kidd handed down his sentence in a hearing broadcast live worldwide on Wednesday from Victoria’s County Court in central Melbourne.

Pell, 77, was found guilty of one count of sexual penetration of a child and four counts of committing an indecent act with a child last December after a secret five-week trial.

Reporting of the trial and verdict was suppressed by the court to avoid prejudicing a second trial, which crown prosecutors abandoned in February after the judge ruled some prosecution evidence couldn’t be submitted.

On Wednesday, Judge Kidd said Pell’s attack on the victims was “breathtakingly arrogant.”

But the judge said Pell was “not to be made a scapegoat for any failings or perceived failings of the Catholic Church.”

Pell’s legal team has previously announced it will appeal his conviction on three grounds, including that the jury’s verdict on all five charges was unreasonable, based on the evidence submitted. The Court of Appeal is due to hear submissions in early June.

Pell has spent the past two weeks in custody and was brought into the court from the Melbourne Assessment Prison (MAP) via an internal entrance, avoiding rows of cameras set up outside the court in central Melbourne.

More than 150 people crammed into the courtroom, which had been fitted with extra seats to cope with the demand from those who wanted to be there in person to hear how he’d be punished.

Pell sat in the back of the courtroom, surrounded by security officers but uncuffed, as Judge Kidd delivered a detailed explanation of the crimes the cardinal had committed and the reasons for the sentence.

After mass one Sunday in the late 1990s, Judge Kidd recounted, Pell caught two choirboys drinking communion wine in the priest’s sacristy and one by one forced them to engage in sex acts, despite their sobs and pleas for him to let them go.

The first choirboy told how he was forced to perform oral sex on the cardinal, who at the time was Archbishop of Melbourne and a revered figure within the Catholic Church.

The boy didn’t tell anyone what had happened for years, before finally approached Victoria Police in 2015, almost 20 years after the crime. His statement led to an investigation and a number of historical sex abuse charges being filed against the then-Vatican treasurer.

After his conviction, the Vatican launched its own investigation into Pell, which could lead to the cardinal losing his clerical status or being “defrocked,” a severe punishment imposed by the Pope and not subject to appeal.

In his ruling, Judge Kidd was careful not to name the two victims, one of whom gave taped evidence against Pell on a video that was seen only by the jury during the trial. Under Australian law it’s illegal to identify sex abuse victims or reveal information that could expose who they are.

The first victim has declined to comment publicly but said in a statement released by his lawyer after the ruling that since the attack he had experienced “shame, loneliness (and) depression.”

He asked that he be left alone and given time to cope with the ongoing criminal process. “The process has been stressful and is not over yet,” he said.

The second victim died of a heroin overdose a few years ago.

The deceased victim’s father told CNN that his son had been an outgoing child who played sport and liked singing, a talent that earned him a scholarship to the prestigious boys’ school and ultimately an invitation to sing in St. Patrick’s Cathedral where the attack took place.

Around one year after the assault, he said his son was kicked out of the choir, lost his scholarship and started injecting heroin.

“He was trying to mask something that had happened to him. He was trying to cover up something that had happened to him, so heinous and so horrible,” said his father, who is considering filing a civil case against the church.

Pell’s defense team had submitted 10 references that attested to Pell’s good character. They included one from former Prime Minister John Howard who wrote that Pell, his friend for approximately 30 years, was a person of “high intelligence and exemplary character.”

Howard said he was aware of Pell’s conviction and pending appeal but that “none of these matters alter my opinion of the Cardinal.”

Several of Pell’s other high-profile friends in Australia have leaped to his defense, questioning the jury’s verdict and predicting the cardinal would be exonerated on appeal.

The depiction of Pell as a man wronged has infuriated survivors of church sex abuse who say that casting victims as liars and priests as beyond reproach perpetuates a culture that allowed abuse to thrive within the Catholic Church for decades.

Statistics released in 2017 by Australia’s Royal Commission into Responses to Institutional Child Sex Abuse stated that 7% of all Catholic priests in the country had abused children over the past six decades.

Judge Kidd addressed the current climate of anger with the Catholic Church at Pell’s February hearing when he said, “The Catholic Church is not on trial and I’m not imposing a sentence on the Catholic Church. I’m imposing a sentence on Cardinal Pell for what he did.”
Australian cardinal George Pell is convicted of sexually assaulting two 13-year-old choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral. The verdict has been suppressed by a gag order until now. He is the Catholic Church's most senior official to be convicted of a sexual crime in history.