Cardinal George Pell has said there is “evidence, but no proof” that he was falsely accused of paedophilia because of his attempts to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances.
Pell, whose sexual abuse conviction was thrown out by the Australian High Court in April, made the suggestion on Wednesday night at the launch of his prison memoir, where he also praised Donald Trump’s presidency.
“I am quite confident that there was money going from Rome to Australia at that time but I have no proof of where it ended up,” said Pell, in reference to the unsubstantiated suggestion his prosecution was funded by the Vatican.
Pell’s efforts to reform Vatican finances as prefect of their economy ministry were interrupted in 2017 by allegations that he sexually molested two 13-year old choir boys in the sacristy of Melbourne cathedral over 20 years ago. After a first jury deadlocked, he was unanimously convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.
Pell spent 404 days locked up – much of it in solitary confinement – while his conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal, before the Australian High Court unanimously overthrew it in April this year.
“We don’t have proof of a connection in this sense: that money from Rome was used to pervert the course of justice,” Pell said on Wednesday night. “I’ve never claimed that and I have gone out of my way to make that quite clear.” Victoria’s independent broad-based anti-corruption commission has said it will not investigate the connections.
However, he added: “There is smoke but we don’t have proof of fire. But I come from a bushfire country and sometimes the entire state is covered in smoke.”
Pell also spoke about the difficulties he faced from the Vatican old guard when trying to clean up their finances. “Fighting for financial reform in Rome was for a whole host of reasons very difficult and very exhausting,” he said.
In his new book Prison Journal, Pell reflects on his personal pain at being falsely accused and imprisoned, and on the wider meaning of suffering in the life of a Christian.
Alongside describing his time in jail, Pell used the book launch’s virtual press conference to praise Donald Trump for his “splendid” supreme court appointments, two of whom are Catholic.
“He is a little bit of a barbarian, but in some important ways, he is our [Christian] barbarian,” said Pell. He went on to talk about a Christian’s obligation to uphold their values in the modern world, and said that in his opinion “Trump has on the whole made a positive contribution to the Christian cause.”
However, he criticised Trump’s efforts to undermine the result of the US presidential election. “I’m not sure that he’s been sufficiently respectful of the political process,” Pell said. “And if that’s not the case, it needs to be established very, very clearly because it is no small thing to weaken trust in great public institutions.”
Loading ...
