Australian Cardinal found guilty of sexually abusing choirboys
● Sentencing to take place today ● Maximum 50year prison term
The most senior Catholic cleric ever charged with child sex abuse has been convicted of molesting two choirboys moments after celebrating Mass.
Cardinal George Pell – Pope Francis’ top financial adviser and the Vatican’s economy minister – bowed his head, but then regained his composure as the 12-member jury delivered unanimous verdicts in the Victoria state County Court on 11 December after more than two days of deliberation. The Australian court had until yesterday forbidden publication of any details about the trial.
Pell faces a potential maximum 50-year prison term after a sentencing hearing that starts today. He lodged an appeal last week against the convictions.
The ruling has dealt a new blow to the Catholic hierarchy’s credibility after a year of global revelations of abuse.
Details of the trial had been suppressed because until yesterday, Pell had faced a second trial in April on charges that he indecently assaulted two boys aged nine or ten and 11 or 12 as a young priest in the late 1970s in a public pool in his hometown of Ballarat. Prosecutor Fran Dalziel told the court the Ballarat charges had been dropped and asked for the suppression order to be lifted. The move came days after a judge ruled out two key prosecution witnesses in the Ballarat case.
Acting Holy See spokesman Alessandro Gisotti read a statement yesterday at the Vatican, saying Pope Francis has confirmed “precautionary measures” already taken against Pell, including a ban on his saying Mass in public and “as is the rule, contact in any way or form with minors”.
The victim who testified at Pell’s trial said after the conviction was revealed he had experienced “shame, loneliness, depression and struggle”. In his statement, the man said it
had taken him years to understand the impact the assault had on his life.
Lawyer Lisa Flynn said the father of the second victim, who died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 31, was planning to sue the church or Pell individually once the appeal was resolved.
Pell was surrounded by a crush of cameras and members of the public as he was ushered from the courthouse to a waiting car. “You’re a monster,” one man shouted. “You’re going to burn in hell,
you freak.” Another of Pell’s lawyers, Paul Galbally, said Pell continued to maintain his innocence.
The revelations came in the same month the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had approved the expulsion from the priesthood of a former high-ranking American cardinal, Theodore Mccarrick, for sexual abuse of minors and adults.
The convictions were also confirmed days after the pope ended his extraordinary summit of Catholic leaders sum- moned to Rome for a tutorial on preventing clergy sexual abuse and protecting children from predator priests.
Australia’s ranking bishop, Mark Coleridge, who delivered the homily at the final Mass of the summit, said Pell’s convictions “shocked many across Australia and around the world, including the Catholic Bishops of Australia”.
The lifting of the suppression order was welcomed by SNAP, a US support group for victim of clergy abuse.
The jury convicted Pell of abusing two boys whom he had caught swigging sacramental wine in a rear room of Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in late 1996 as hundreds of worshippers were streaming out of Sunday services. Pell, now 77 but 55 at the time, had just been named the most senior Catholic in Australia’s second-largest city Melbourne.
The boys were both 13 years old. The jury also found Pell guilty of indecently assaulting one of the boys in a corridor more than a month later.
Pell had described the accusations as “vile”.