ROME — Cardinal George Pell, who was the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of child sex abuse and spent 404 days in solitary confinement in his native Australia only to have his convictions overturned, died Tuesday. He was 81.
Pell died after undergoing hip surgery at Rome's Salvator Mundi hospital, said a friend, Rev. Robert McCulloch, a Rome-base priest. He had been in Rome to attend the funeral last week of Pope Benedict XVI.
