The conviction was upheld on appeal only to be thrown out by Australia’s High Court, which in April 2020 found there was reasonable doubt in the testimony of his lone accuser.
Pell left his job as prefect of the Vatican’s economy ministry in 2017 to return home to face charges that he sexually molested two 13-year-old choir boys in the sacristy of the Melbourne cathedral in 1996.Īfter a first jury deadlocked, a second convicted him and he was sentenced to six years in prison. But I’m regional: I go immediately to Lazio,” which surrounds Rome. “I’ve become very Italian,” Pell tells a visitor one morning, referring to his daily routine checking coronavirus cases in Italy. Pell, who turns 80 in June, is buoyed by the perks of being a retired Vatican cardinal even as he tries to put back together a life and career that were upended by his criminal trials and 404 days spent in solitary confinement in a Melbourne lockup. ROME (AP) - Cardinal George Pell is enjoying his first Roman spring since being exonerated of sex abuse charges in his native Australia: He receives visitors to his Vatican flat, sips midday Aperol spritzes at the outdoor cafe downstairs and keeps up religiously with news of a Holy See financial scandal that he suspected years ago.
