Over the last three years, sexual abuse charges against two high-profile and massively influential cardinals have rocked the Catholic Church, and now, seemingly, both stories have reached their conclusions. Cardinal George Pell is a free man, while Theodore McCarrick is laicized and exposed as a cunning manipulator able to hoodwink three papacies until his string finally ran out.
Plans are moving forward for the establishment of a national system for child protection within the Australian Catholic Church, according to a report following the meeting of the country’s Catholic bishops earlier this month.
Obviously, the primary beneficiary of Tuesday’s decision by Australia’s High Court to overturn the sexual abuse conviction of Cardinal George Pell is Pell himself. The 78-year-old prelate was definitively acquitted and is now a free man after more than 400 days in prison, mostly in solitary confinement.
Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of child abuse offenses, has lodged an application with Australia’s High Court to appeal his guilty verdict.
On August 20, the Victoria state Court of Appeal will determine the fate of Cardinal George Pell, one of Catholic Church’s highest ranking members in Australia.
Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was convicted of sexually abusing two choir boys more than 20 years ago, began his court appeal of the conviction on Wednesday June 5.
