Cardinal Pell, Australia's highest ranking Catholic cleric, dies aged 81 in Rome
Cardinal Pell
Cardinal George Pell, former top Vatican official and the most senior Catholic official to be convicted of child sex abuse, has died at age 81, according to his private secretary. He was later acquitted of sexual abuse allegations when the ruling was overturned in 2020.Pell was Australia's highest ranking Catholic cleric, and the most senior Church figure ever jailed for such offences.
Fr. Joseph Hamilton told Reuters that Pell died in a Rome hospital on Tuesday night. Church officials said Pell died from heart complications following a hip surgery.
Pell was in jail for 13 months and his case rocked the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. He was a former archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney and served as economy minister at the Vatican from 2014 until 2017 when he took a leave of absence to return to Australia to face the abuse charges.
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A jury in 2018 found he had abused two choir boys while he was the Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s, a verdict which was quashed in 2020 by an Australian appeals court.
However, another civil lawsuit initiated by the father of a choirboy that prosecutors alleged Cardinal Pell abused is still ongoing.
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Pell was living in Rome since his acquittal and met with Pope Francis on several occasions. Pell often attended the pontiff's Masses and Francis even praised him publicly after his return. Francis's morning Mass on the day of Pell's acquittal was for all those who suffer from unjust sentences, which he compared to the persecution of Jesus.
He was the star figure for conservatives preparing for the eventual election of Francis's successor. Pell was a close friend of former Pope Benedict, who died last month. But he disagreed with Benedict's decision to continuing wearing white, saying it had confused the faithful.
(With inputs from agencies)
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