ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service

December 17, 2020

By Claire Giangravé

Forgiveness is a recurring theme of the former Vatican official’s prison journal, and he told reporters that if anyone in the Vatican meant him harm, ‘I will pray for them.’

Cardinal George Pell was not soured by his fall from the Catholic Church’s top ranks after he was accused of sexually abusing minors, the Australian prelate told reporters Wednesday (Dec. 16). Nor did the Vatican’s tepid defense of its former financial reform czar alienate Pell as he went to trial and was eventually acquitted on appeal.

“Right throughout Pope Francis was very respectful, as was the Vatican, of the due process in Australia, but he made no secret privately and to me of his belief that I was innocent and he supported me,” Pell said in an online news conference to publicize his new book, a prison journal.

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