An Australian court has found Cardinal George Pell, one of the highest ranking Vatican officials and a former top adviser to Pope Francis, guilty on five charges of child sexual offences committed more than two decades ago against 13-year-old boys.
The verdict was made public on Tuesday following the lifting of a court suppression order on the trial, after a second abuse case against Cardinal Pell — the most senior Catholic clergyman worldwide to be convicted for child sex offences — was dropped by the prosecution.
Cardinal Pell’s lawyers have said they will appeal the verdict, which embarrassed the Vatican because it became public just two days after a major conference on preventing sex abuse. He had pleaded not guilty to all five charges. In the Vatican’s first response, spokesman Alessandro Gisotti told reporters the conviction was “painful” for many but that the Cardinal had proclaimed his innocence and had the right to “defend himself until last level” of judicial process.
A jury in the Country Court of Victoria in Melbourne found Cardinal Pell guilty on December 11 following a four-week trial.
He was convicted of five sexual offences committed against the 13-year-old choir boys 22 years earlier in the priests’ sacristy of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, where Cardinal Pell was Archbishop. One of the two victims died in 2014.
