Cardinal convicted of abusing boys
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA • The most senior Catholic cleric ever charged with child sex abuse has been convicted of molesting two choirboys moments after celebrating mass, dealing a new blow to the Catholic hierarchy’s credibility after a year of global revelations of abuse and coverup.
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 Dec. 11 after more than two days of deliberation.
The court had until Tuesday forbidden publication of any details about the trial.
Pell faces a potential maximum 50-year prison term after a sentencing hearing that begins on Wednesday. He has foreshadowed an appeal.
The revelations came in the same month that the Vatican announced Francis approved the expulsion from the priesthood for a former high-ranking American cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, for sexual abuse of minors and adults.
The convictions were also confirmed days after Francis concluded his extraordinary summit of Catholic leaders brought to Rome for a tutorial on preventing clergy sexual abuse and protecting children from predator priests.
The jury convicted Pell of abusing two 13-year-old 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 Melbourne.
The jury also found Pell guilty of indecently assaulting one of the boys in a corridor more than a month later.
Pell had maintained his innocence throughout, describing the accusations as “vile and disgusting conduct” that went against everything he believed in.
His lawyer had told the jury that only a “mad man” would take the risk of abusing boys in such a public place. Both he and Chief Judge Peter Kidd urged the jury not to punish Pell for all the failings of the Church.
Along with Ireland and the U.S., Australia has been devastated by the impact of the clerical abuse scandal, with a Royal Commission inquiry finding that 4,444 people reported they had been abused at more than 1,000 Catholic institutions across Australia between 1980 and 2015.
Pell’s trial amounted to something of a reckoning for survivors, with the brash and towering cardinal becoming the poster child for all that went wrong with the way the Catholic Church handled the scandal.
The now 34-year-old survivor told the court that Pell orally raped him, and fondled his genitals.
“I was young and I didn’t really know what had happened to me. I didn’t really know what it was, if it was normal,” the complainant told the court. The other victim died of a heroin overdose in 2014 without ever complaining of the abuse.