Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, has died in Rome, aged 81. 

The former Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne and Archbishop of Sydney, died from heart complications on Tuesday following hip surgery.

He was the Vatican’s top finance minister before he left Rome in 2017 to stand trial in Melbourne for child sexual abuse offences.

In 2018, Cardinal Pell was convicted of molesting two teenage choirboys in the sacristy at St Patrick’s Cathedral while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996.

But Cardinal Pell always maintained his innocence and in 2020 his convictions were quashed in a unanimous High Court decision.

Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli said the cardinal was a very significant and influential church leader, in Australia and abroad.

“Let our prayers go out to the God of Jesus Christ, whom Cardinal Pell wholeheartedly believed in and followed, that he may be welcomed into eternal life,” the archbishop said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. 

Cardinal Pell was born in Ballarat on June 8, 1941, the eldest child of George, a boxing champion, publican and non-practising Anglican and Margaret, a devout Catholic.

He was ordained a priest at St Peter’s Basilica in 1966 and returned to his home town of Ballarat in 1973 to work as a director of the city’s Aquinas campus.

He succeeded Sir Frank Little as Melbourne Archbishop in 1996 and then moved to Sydney to be the archbishop there five years later. 

At that time, a man claimed Cardinal Pell sexually abused him in 1962 when he was an altar boy. Cardinal Pell denied the charge and in 2003 he became a cardinal in the Vatican. 

In 2013, Cardinal Pell appeared before a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse. He acknowledged his church had covered up the “foul crime” and sometimes placed priests above the law.

The following year Pope Francis appointed him cardinal prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, which placed him as the third most powerful man in the Vatican.

After Cardinal Pell’s convictions were quashed in 2020, Pope Francis tweeted, “we’ve been witnessing the persecution that Jesus underwent and how He was judged ferociously, even though He was innocent. 

Speaking from Rockhampton, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he expressed his condolences on behalf of the government to Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher.

“Archbishop Fisher informed me that there will be a service held in the Vatican in coming days but then there will be a service at St Mary ‘s Cathedral at sometime in the future,” he said

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing assistance to return Cardinal Pell’s body back to Australia, Mr Albanese said.

In a Facebook post, Archbishop Fisher said the news came as a shock.

“Please pray for the repose of the soul of Cardinal Pell, for comfort and consolation for his family and for all of those who loved him and are grieving him at this time,” he wrote.

The bells at St Mary’s Cathedral, the home of Sydney’s Catholic Archdiocese, tolled 81 times on Wednesday morning to mark the death. 

The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said the cardinal was a man of deep and abiding faith.

“Cardinal Pell provided strong and clear leadership,” Archbishop Timothy Costelloe said in a statement.

“(His) impact on the life of the Church in Australia and around the world will continue to be felt for many years.”

Victorian government minister Steve Dimopoulos noted it would be a difficult day for survivors and victims of child sexual abuse and their families. 

Shine Lawyers, who are representing the father of the altar boy who alleged he was abused by Cardinal Pell, said the legal claim against the church and the cardinal’s estate would continue.

The father is seeking damages, claiming he suffered nervous shock after being informed of allegations.

Cardinal Pell’s legacy would continue to be mixed because of the allegations of child abuse and church cover-ups, Australian Catholic University senior research fellow Miles Pattenden said.

“But Cardinal Pell was the most powerful Australian ever to have risen through the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church,” Dr Pattenden told AAP. 

“He put Australia on the map in the Vatican. He was a powerful and effective communicator and politician within the Vatican.”

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