People want to know more about George Pell’s allegations since he was the oldest Catholic to spend time in jail for child sex abuse.
According to his secretary, the 81-year-old Australian Cardinal George Pell, a well-known Catholic conservative and former senior Vatican official exonerated of sexual abuse allegations in 2020, died suddenly on Tuesday.
Pell died suddenly on Tuesday night in Rome, according to Father Joseph Hamilton’s statement to Reuters. He said that the Sydney archdiocese will issue a statement later.
Peter Comensoli, the archbishop of Melbourne, said that Pell had undergone hip surgery before developing cardiac issues. Cardinal Pell was a very significant and prominent church leader, both in Australia and internationally, he disclosed on Facebook.
2020 saw the invalidation of Pell’s convictions for sexually abusing two choir boys in the 1990s by an Australian appeals court.
What Did George Pell Do to Deserve These Charges?
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Pell was ordered to face trial in May 2018 after being charged with many past sexual offenses related to alleged encounters in a pool in his birthplace of Ballarat in the 1970s and Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s. The judge’s decision to exclude certain evidence resulted in the so-called swimmer’s case being dismissed.
Due to Pell’s adamant denial of the allegations and decision not to testify in the first two trials, the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
The highest senior Catholic official to ever spend time in jail for child sex abuse, he was given a six-year prison sentence.
Two Teenage Choirboys were assaulted by George Pell
George Pell was handed a six-year sentence after being found guilty on all five charges of molesting two adolescent choirboys at the cathedral while serving as the archbishop of Melbourne.
His conviction was overturned by Australia’s seven High Court justices after they all agreed that it had not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. He had spent 404 days in solitary after losing his first appeal.
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One of Australia’s most contentious cases, the divisive one even saw some media outlets break a court order prohibiting trial coverage.
George Pell, was he released from jail?
The ruling enabled Pell, who was 78 at the time, to be freed from jail after spending 13 months in custody, bringing an end to the case of the most senior individual charged in the worldwide epidemic of historical sex abuse that has rocked the Catholic Church all over the globe.
Pell, a former archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, began serving as the Vatican’s minister of the economy in 2014. Then, in 2017, he took some time off to go back to Australia and provide his side of the story.
He has called Rome home ever since he was exonerated in 2020. Pell routinely attended the pontiff’s Masses, and following his return, Francis gave him effusive plaudits.
Before the charges of sexual assault, Pell had been a polarizing figure in the Australian Catholic hierarchy for two decades.
As a result of his vehement opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, and women’s ordination, he was loved by traditionalist Catholics but reviled by liberals.
Pell was ordered to face trial in May 2018 after being charged with many past sexual offenses related to alleged encounters in a pool in his birthplace of Ballarat in the 1970s and Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s. The judge’s decision to exclude certain evidence resulted in the so-called swimmer’s case being dismissed.
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