George Pell

George Pell was an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. In 2018, Pell was convicted of child sexual abuse, before the convictions were unanimously quashed on appeal by the High Court of Australia in 2020. Between conviction and acquittal, Pell served more than a year in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. In January 2025 it was announced that the Australian National Redress Scheme, a non-judicial program, had accepted that Pell abused two boys in Ballarat in the 1970s, with compensation paid to one of the boys five weeks prior to Pell's death. According to findings released by Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2020, Pell knew of child sexual abuse by clergy by the 1970s but did not take adequate action to address it. Pell said he was "surprised" and that the royal commission's findings "are not supported by evidence".