WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via The Dialog of the Diocese of Wilmington
June 26, 2020
By Carol Glatz
Rome – Ignatius Press will be publishing Australian Cardinal George Pell’s prison journal and it is also appealing for donations it will give the cardinal for outstanding legal expenses incurred in defending himself against allegations of the sexual abuse of minors.
Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, editor of the U.S.-based Ignatius Press, said, “I’ve already read the first half of the journal and it is extraordinary. I think it’s going to be a spiritual classic.”
The complete journal, he said, is about 1,000 pages, “so we will print it in three or four volumes” with the first volume expected to be out in the spring of 2021.
“With your help, we can proceed with this project and offer Cardinal Pell appropriate advances on these volumes, which he can then use to remove much of the worry he now has about his legal debts,” the priest said in a message published in June on the Ignatius Press website.
The “Cardinal George Pell Donation Project,” found on Ignatius.com, said donations made through the publisher’s website or its parent company, Guadalupe Associates Inc., were tax deductible.
A jury in Australia had found Cardinal Pell guilty in December 2018 on five counts of abuse and the Victoria Court of Appeal upheld that verdict in a 2-1 decision.
The 79-year-old cardinal had served nearly 14 months out of a six-year sentence when, in April, seven judges of the High Court of Australia dismissed his conviction on charges of abusing two choirboys in 1996. He was in solitary confinement 23 hours a day for 405 days.
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