After being acquitted of child sexual abuse charges, George Pell is leaving Australia and heading back to his spiritual home.
The former high ranking Cardinal will go back to the Vatican today (Tuesday, September 29), according to CathNews, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference's information agency.
A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Sydney has also confirmed to Reuters that the Cardinal is due to depart Australia later today.
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It's unclear what the 79-year-old will do once he is back in Italy.
Pell used to be the third highest ranking member in the Catholic Church and served as Pope Francis' finance minister.
He left that post in 2017 to fly back to Australia to defend himself against child sexual abuse allegations. He later became the highest ranking Catholic to be formally charged with child sexual abuse offences.
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Pell was eventually found guilty of molesting two Victorian choir boys in the 1990s when he was the Archbishop of Melbourne. However, after serving more than a year behind bars, the High Court acquitted him of those charges and he was free to leave.
Despite being granted his freedom, he has faced a very loud and very angry Australian public, with tens of thousands of then calling for him to be defrocked.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made public its findings about its investigation into Pell about a month after he was acquitted.
It had found that Pell knew children were being abused by members of the clergy and found it 'implausible' that other church members hadn't told him about the issue.
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More than 100,000 people signed Paul Levey's petition calling for Pell to be 'dismissed from the clerical state and defrocked'.
Levey was abused by pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, who is currently in jail for committing more than 100 offences against children in Australia. Pell gave him a character reference during his child sexual abuse trial.
The Royal Commission report found that Pell attended a meeting the in 1980s, where he was told Ridsdale was being moved to a different parish due to child sexual abuse allegations.
Pell was 'surprised' by the Commission's unredacted report and insisted he had no knowledge of the pedophile priest's offending.
Featured Image Credit: PA