What has happened to Cardinal Pell? People want to know more about George Pell’s allegations because he was the oldest Catholic to serve time in prison for child sex assault.
According to his secretary, the 81-year-old Australian Cardinal George Pell, a well-known Catholic conservative and former top Vatican official cleared of sexual abuse allegations in 2020, passed suddenly on Tuesday.
Pell passed suddenly on Tuesday night in Rome, according to Father Joseph Hamilton’s statement to Reuters. He said that the Sydney archdiocese would issue a statement later.
Peter Comensoli, the archbishop of Melbourne, said that Pell had undergone hip surgery before developing heart issues. Cardinal Pell was a very significant and influential church leader, both in Australia and internationally, he disclosed on Facebook.
Pell’s convictions for sexually assaulting two choir boys in the 1990s were invalidated by an Australian appeals court in 2020.
What has happened to Cardinal Pell? Accusations
Several historical $exual offense charges against Pell stemming from alleged incidents at a pool in his hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s and Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s led to his commitment to stand trial in May 2018. The so-called swimmer’s case was dismissed due to the judge disallowing particular evidence.
Pell vehemently denied the accusations and chose not to testify in the first two trials, resulting in a deadlocked jury.
He received a six-year prison term, making him the highest-ranking Catholic official ever to serve time in prison for child $ex abuse.
George Pell Assaulted Two Teenage Choirboys
George Pell was found guilty on all five counts at the retrial of assaulting two teenage choirboys at the cathedral while serving as the archbishop of Melbourne and was given a six-year sentence.
Australia’s seven High Court judges overturned his conviction after all agreed that it had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. He had lost his first appeal and had been imprisoned in solitary for 404 days.
The controversial case was one of Australia’s most contentious, and some media outlets even violated a court order barring trial coverage.
Was George Pell Freed From Prison?
After serving 13 months in prison, the decision allowed Pell, who was then 78, to be released, putting an end to the case of the most senior figure accused in the global scandal of historical sex abuse that has shaken the Catholic Church all over the world.
Former Melbourne and Sydney archbishop Pell was the Vatican’s minister of the economy from 2014. Then, in 2017, he took a time off to travel back to Australia to defend himself against the allegations.
Since his 2020 acquittal, he has resided in Rome. Pell frequently attended the pontiff’s Masses, and Francis publicly praised him after his return.
Pell Was A Polarizing Figure In Church
Pell was a divisive figure in the Australian Catholic hierarchy for two decades prior to the sexual assault allegations.
He was revered by conservative Catholics but despised by liberals for his adamant opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, and women’s ordination.
Several historical sexual offense charges against Pell stemming from alleged incidents at a pool in his hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s and Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s led to his commitment to stand trial in May 2018. The so-called swimmer’s case was dismissed due to the judge disallowing particular evidence.
Pell, who had been sent to Rome to take care of the Vatican’s finances, returned and refuted the charges. He did not testify during the two trials, the first of which had a hung jury.
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