Cardinal George Pell pens Easter message on redemption
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.
The letter, published Saturday in The Weekend Australian, comes after the country's High Court on Tuesday quashed five counts against Pell of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s, ending the most high-profile paedophilia case faced by the Catholic Church.
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.
"I have just spent 13 months in jail for a crime I didn't commit, one disappointment after another," he wrote.
"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."
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