Australian Cardinal George Pell dies at the age of 81

Pell’s 2018 conviction on sexual assault expenses shocked the Catholic Church, however was later overturned.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, a former treasurer of the Vatican who was probably the most senior member of the Catholic clergy to be convicted of kid intercourse abuse earlier than his convictions have been overturned, has died on the age of 81.

Pell died in Rome on Tuesday evening, his non-public secretary mentioned.

He was as soon as the third-highest-ranked Catholic within the Vatican after earlier serving because the archbishop of Melbourne and archbishop of Sydney.

Archbishop Peter Comensoli, the present archbishop of Melbourne, mentioned Pell had died from coronary heart issues following hip surgical procedure.

“Cardinal Pell was a really vital and influential Church chief, each in Australia and internationally, deeply dedicated to Christian discipleship,” he mentioned in a press release on Fb.

Pell spent 13 months in jail earlier than Australia’s highest court docket in 2020 quashed his conviction for sexually assaulting two choir boys within the Nineteen Nineties.

The choice allowed the then-78-year-old Pell to stroll free. He was probably the most senior member of the church to be accused of historic sexual abuse in a scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church worldwide.

Pell was the Vatican’s economic system minister from 2014 till he took depart of absence in 2017 to return to Australia to face the assault expenses.

He had been dwelling in Rome since his acquittal and had a number of conferences with Pope Francis. He attended the funeral final week of Pope Benedict XVI.

Even earlier than the sexual assault allegations, Pell was a polarising determine in Australia, revered by conservative Catholics however scorned by liberals for his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion and girls’s ordination.