Framed by the Vatican: Pell’s shock claim over child sex conviction
Cardinal George Pell suspects he was framed on child sex charges in Victoria due to his work on Vatican financial reform.
Cardinal George Pell has written a book about his time in jail before being cleared of sexual abuse charges. (Photo: AAP: James Ross)
Cardinal Pell was in December 2018 convicted on five charges of child sexual abuse but in April had his convictions quashed by the High Court.
He has since returned to his residence in Vatican City after a short period in Sydney and will this week publish his prison diaries.
The cardinal, who spent 404 days in prison before his acquittal, admitted to Italian public broadcaster RAI 1 he suspected he’d been framed because of his prior work as prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy.
“All the most important people that have worked together on financial reform, every single one of us, I believe with very few exceptions, has been attacked in the media and had our reputations besmirched in one way or another,” Cardinal Pell told RAI 1’s Sette Storie program on Monday.
Cardinal Pell was tasked in 2014 with overseeing Vatican finances, including its budget, and cleaning up its books after a number of corruption scandals.
He returned to Australia in 2018 to face charges and never resumed his duties.
He did not provide any evidence that lent weight to his suspicions.
Cardinal Pell also referred to the case of Roberto Calvi, a Vatican banker who was in 1982 found dead hanging from a London bridge, and to banker Michele Sindona, who was fatally poisoned in prison in 1986.
“We all remember what happened to Calvi, who killed himself at a bridge in London … with his hands behind his back. A strange way to hang yourself,” he said.
“And we remember what happened to the other one, Sindona, poisoned in prison … Nowadays, it’s often used, (to attack) by destroying reputations.”
Cardinal Pell, 79, last week declared to Reuters the Vatican risked slowly “going broke” unless it curbed its deficits and put its house in order.
The Ballarat-born cardinal has “quietly” met with his successor as Vatican treasurer, Spaniard Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, as well as Pope Francis.
He also declared to Reuters that his stint in prison in Victoria “wasn’t like a holiday”, but he didn’t want to exaggerate its awfulness.
-AAP, with Reuters
