The Australian cardinal George Pell rose from modest beginnings to become one of the world’s most powerful Catholics but his reputation was fatally damaged by association with the church’s child sexual abuse scandals in his home country. Pell himself became the highest-ranking Catholic to be convicted of such offences, and he spent more than a year in jail before his convictions were overturned by Australia’s high court in 2020.
In his role as cardinal and inaugural treasurer of the Vatican’s Secretariat of the Economy, Pell had the ear of Pope Francis, but his influence had already begun to wane by the time he was charged with child sexual abuse offences in Australia in 2017. Pell was acquitted on appeal after his conviction in 2018, having spent 405 days in jail.
