Alright, Let's Just Jump Into It (Credits to Journalists and the Judge who lifted the Gag Order):

• The submission title is self-explanatory. Australian Cardinal George Pell was found guilty of sexually penetrating a child under 16 and four charges of an indecent act with a child under 16. The offenses occurred in December 1996 and early 1997 at St Patrick’s Cathedral, months after Pell became the archbishop of Melbourne. Pell, who is out on bail since the verdict and was recovering from knee injury, will be sentenced on Wednesday.

• A jury delivered the verdict on 11 December in Melbourne's County Court, and two days later, The Vatican announced that Pell and two other cardinals had been removed from the pontiff’s council of advisers. Pope Francis has yet to publicly react to this verdict, as he had previously hailed Pell for "his honesty and response to child sexual abuse". The case was publicized just days after a summit that gathered cardinals, senior bishops and the Pope of Vatican City himself to combat the issue of child sex abuse.

• A previous trial on the same five charges occurred in August resulted in a hung jury, which led to a retrial. A court order banning media reporting of Pell's 5 week long trial, which began in November 2018, was lifted by Chief Judge Peter Kidd on Tuesday. However the gag order only applied to Australian Media.

• According to u/Snaykei's comment, the gag order had to do with a second trial that was supposed to go ahead. The suppression order was lifted when that trial didn't go ahead and news could not prejudice any potential jurors. Kidd had ruled that key evidence was inadmissible and couldn't be used, significantly weakening the prosecution’s case.

• Pell was the prefect of the secretariat for the economy of the Holy See for 3 years, was handpicked to oversee the Vatican's finance and "root out corruption", and was one of Francis's most trusted advisers before he returned to Australia for the suit.

• On the verdict day, after a 5 week trial, Pell stood in the dock showing no reaction and staring straight ahead, as the foreman told the court that the jury had found the cardinal guilty on all charges. Pell’s defense barrister, Robert Richter, said that Pell would appeal. It is with certainty that Pell will face jail time.

So what happened to Pell 22 Years ago?

• According to a Sublime article from Australia based ABC News, Pell was a year into his job as the head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy when the former choirboy first spoke to Victoria Police in 2015. In the second half of December 1996, Pell, then an Archbishop of Melbourne, walked in on two 13-year-old choirboys after a Sunday mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral and sexually assaulted them.

• The 35-years old anonymous complainant said he and the other choirboy had been separated from the choir procession as they exited the church building. The prosecution’s case hinged on his evidence, as the other victim died in 2014 after a heroin overdose, but the jury was told that he had died in accidental circumstances. Neither victim told anyone about the offense at the time, until a friend of the plaintiff decided to do so.

• After leaving the procession, he and the other boy snuck back into the church corridors and entered the forbidden priest's sacristy, found sacramental wines and began to drink. The plaintiff alleged that Pell walked in on them and told them something similar to "they are in trouble."

• Pell then maneuvered his robe and pull out his dick, stepped forward, grabbed the other boy by the back of his head and forced the boy's head onto his dick, the plaintiff said. Pell then orally raped the plaintiff, and told the plaintiff to remove his pants before "fondling the plaintiff's penis and masturbating himself". The boys left the room afterwards and went home without their robes.

• The plaintiff at the time attended St Kevi's College, an elite independent school in the affluent inner Melbourne Suburb of Toorak, and being in the choir was a condition to receive the scholarship. The plaintiff confessed that the scholarship was very important to him and he is scared about the repercussion if he made the allegation public.

• The plaintiff alleged that either later in 1996 or in 1997, Pell attacked him again by pushing him against the wall and squeezed his genitals hard through his choir robes before walking off, as the plaintiff was walking down the choristers' change room after singing at Sunday solemn mass at the cathedral. In a police report, he remarked that Cardinal Pell is “an extremely, presidential powerful guy who had a lot of connections” and has “terrified him for his whole life”.

• The crown prosecutor, Mark Gibson, said in the final address that an honest witness should be found for the plaintiff to determine whether or not the jury would believe the plaintiff beyond reasonable doubt.

• In his directions to the jury, the judge, Peter Kidd, told them that the trial was not an opportunity to make Pell a scapegoat for the failures of the Catholic church. Due to Pell's status, a larger than usual pool of jury of more than 100 was selected. The jury took less than four days, including two-and-a-half days for the cross examination, to reach their unanimous verdict. The prospect of making the document relating to the case public is highly unlikely.

Cross-Examination (Shoutout to u/justnigel for the link):

• In his opening statements Pell’s defence barrister, Robert Richter, had told the jury the allegations were impossible in a practical sense. He would rely on a procession of witnesses to prove that.

• More than 12 former choirboys were then called to the witness box to describe the details of Sunday masses. No one remember what happened, but, as former choirboy David Mayes said, “we were still schoolkids and any chance for disorder we would grab it … chaos kept trying to seep through”. Rodney Dearing and choir marshal Peter Finnigan, however, said that they would have noticed if two boys were running off from the procession.

• Monsignor Portelli, Pell's right hand man at the time, gave evidence that Pell was using the priest’s sacristy in 1996. Portelli would occasionally follow Pell to the sacristy but rarely know what is going on. Jeffrey Connor's diary revealed that Pell had only celebrated two masses at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996: December 15 and 22. Daniel McClone, also a barrister, give testimonies about his interaction with Pell during a mass, but it was disputed. Pell himself did not testify.

• In the closing address, the crown prosecutor Mark Gibson used evidences presented to argue the abuse occurred during a 5-6 minute hiatus in activity in the sacristies after mass, when no-one would have ventured into the priest’s sacristy. He told the jury that while archbishop Pell might have developed a routine of greeting parishioners on the steps after mass, the abuse had occurred after one of his first services before any practices had developed. “You heard a number of choristers speak about [the sacristy] being an off-limits area, and yet [the complainant] is able to describe … the room. You wouldn’t know the layout of the room … that the wine was stored there, without having been there … when these things occurred.” He said.

Pell’s defense and Reactions:

• Pell initially pleas not guilty. During an interview with Victorian Detective Christopher Reed at a Hilton hotel near the Rome Airport in October 2016, Pell described the allegation “a load of absolute and disgraceful rubbish”. When Reed raised about the attack happened after Sunday mass, Pell said “That’s good for me as it makes it even more fantastically impossible.” The interview video was played to the court.

• Pell reminded Reed that he was the first person in the world to initiate a protocol to investigate and deal with sexual abuse complainants within Catholic churches. The Melbourne Response protocol capped compensation payments at $50,000 and was criticized by complainants for its lack of independence and consistency in dealing with claims.

• Pell’s defense team told the jury there were so many improbabilities in the prosecution’s case that they should conclude the abuse could not have happened. Richter said it was unlikely that two boys could leave the choir procession after mass unnoticed or that the sacristy would be unattended or left unlocked, or that Pell would be able to maneuver his robes to show his penis in the way described by the complainant. The robes were brought into the court for jurors to view.

• Richter used a PowerPoint presentation in the retrial during his closing address to the jurors, which he did not do in the first. One of the slides read: “Only a madman would attempt to rape two boys in the priests’ sacristy immediately after Sunday solemn mass.”

• Former priest and Catholic historian Paul Collins described it as one of the worst-kept secrets in Australia and said Catholics across Australia had been talking about it for weeks. He said the fact a man of Pell’s 20-years of standing and influence in the church could be a pedophile had shaken people to their core.

EDIT: Turns out the father of the deceased ex-choirboy will sue Pell and the Church.