"Guilty." There was a gasp in the Australian courtroom as the jury foreman read out the first verdict on child sex offenses against Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican's treasurer, then stunned silence as the same word was repeated for each of the four other charges he faced.
The jury of eight men and four women unanimously agreed on Dec. 11, after a four-week trial, to convict Pell of five sexual offenses committed against two 13-year-old choir boys 22 years earlier in the priests' sacristy of Melbourne's St. Patrick's Cathedral.
They reached their decision after hearing lengthy testimony from a victim, who described how Pell had exposed himself to them, fondled their genitals and masturbated and forced one boy to perform a sex act on him. That complainant still lives in Melbourne. The other victim died in 2014.