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CONVICTION OVERTURNED: Australian Cardinal George Pell has been released from prison after his conviction on charges that he abused two boys was overturned by Australia’s highest court. Pell here relaxes on the grounds of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Sydney April 9, 2020.
(CNS photo/courtesy Archdiocese of Sydney)
Opposite page: Australian Justice Mark Weinberg and Canadian writer Fr. Raymond de Souza
ACQUITTED! Cardinal Pell’s Conviction Overturned AFTER 409 DAYS IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, THE FORMER HEAD OF THE VATICAN’S SECRETARIAT FOR THE ECONOMY IS ACQUITTED OF “HISTORIC” SEXUAL ABUSE CHARGES
n BY CHRISTINA DEARDURFF
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cardinal of the Catholic Church, convicted in Australia last year of disgraceful crimes of sexual abuse, spent 409 days in solitary confinement in two different prisons. He underwent two trials and a failed appeal and then, finally, a last appeal before the country’s highest court, which resulted in his being set free. 10 INSIDE THE VATICAN MAY 2020
Cardinal George Pell, 78, archbishop of Melbourne, Australia and the Vatican’s former Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, on April 6, was cleared in one of the highest-profile clergy sexual abuse cases in the world when the High Court of Australia ordered his release from prison and his complete exoneration on all charges.
Pope Francis, the next day, tweeted, “Let us #PrayTogether today for all those persons who suffer due to an unjust sentence because someone had it in for them.” And it indeed appeared that “someone had it in for” the cardinal. Commentators on both sides of the deep divide over Australia’s
