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Critics say Pell epitomises everything wrong with how the church has dealt with the sex abuse problem.

Cardinal George Pell has admitted he was 'excessively optimistic' he would be granted bail after being wrongly convicted of child sex abuse charges. Australia's highest-ranking Catholic official was convicted in December 2018 of five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral in 1996. He spent 404 days behind bars before his six-year jail sentence was overturned in a final appeal to the High Court in April 2020. Pell, who turns 80 next month, has since returned to his life in Rome having left his job as prefect of the Vatican's economy ministry...

Crushing roadblocks to reentry are heightened by motherhood. Shani Saxon May 5, 2021 2:00PM ET Photo Credit: Women's Prison Association Lisa was thrilled to learn she was pregnant a few years after serving close to 17 years in prison. She was still under parole supervision, but hoped that her pregnancy could be as normal as possible, filled with regular doctor appointments and self-care. She quickly learned, however, that the criminal justice system would make no exceptions for her and her pregnancy. Instead, she was forced to live with the fear and stress of knowing ...

According to the movie Love Story, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Typical Hollywood fluff, you might say. Yet the best answer to that asininity was given by a Hollywood all-star, the late, great Charlton Heston. Asked the secret of what would eventually become his 64-year long marriage to Lydia, Chuck Heston replied, “Learning to say five words: ‘I’m sorry, I was wrong.’” It’s a lesson that seems especially hard to digest these days, at all points along the polarized spectrums of political and ecclesiastical opinion. One gang that finds it impossible to admi...

By Christine Rousselle Cardinal George Pell discussed the surprises, difficulties, and “gift” of everyday life in jail during a press conference this week to mark the publication of the first installment of his prison diaries.   Pell described his stint in prison as a sort of “spiritual retreat,” which he wrote about in his daily journal of incarceration, set to be published in three volumes. The first volume: Prison Journal, Volume 1: the Cardinal Makes His Appeal, was published Dec. 9. During his 404 days in prison for crimes for which he was eventually acquitted, Pell said he k...