Cardinal George Pell has penned a letter in Australia’s national newspaper just days after walking free from prison in which he says the Catholic Church has"cut out a moral cancer" by facing down child sex abuse.
In the Easter message, titled:"In the suffering, we find redemption", Pell labels his initial conviction a disappointment but says he will turn the experience behind bars into spiritual energy. "The sexual abuse crisis damaged thousands of victims. From many points of view the crisis is also bad for the Catholic Church, but we have painfully cut out a moral cancer and this is good."
But the High Court's seven justices unanimously found the lower court had"failed to engage with the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place".