GEORGE PELL

An elite Australian men’s club whose roster includes former prime ministers on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to maintain its 183-year ban on women members. Nearly 700 votes were cast at the Australian Club’s special general meeting, with only 37 per cent in favour of allowing women to join – well short of the three quarters vote required to pass the change. The Sydney club, founded in 1838, has counted prime ministers John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull, Cardinal George Pell and the billionaire Jame

A judge has fined a dozen Australian media companies for breaching a gag order on Cardinal George Pell’s since-overturned convictions for child sexual abuse.

Cardinal George Pell, who was convicted and then acquitted of sex abuse charges in his native Australia, is spending his newfound freedom in Rome.

Australian media companies admitted in court Monday, Feb. 1, 2021, they breached a gag order in publishing references to Cardinal George Pells since-overturned convictions in 2018 for child sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)CANBERRA – Australian media companies admitted in court Monday they breached a gag order in publishing references to Cardinal George Pell’s since-overturned convictions in 2018 for child sexual abuse. The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment would prevent such censorship in the United States, so attempting to extradite an American for breaching an Australian suppression order would be futile. No Australian media company published a straight news report of Pell’s convictions, but some directed their audiences to international online reports. Because there was no second trial, no one is alleging that breaching the suppression order caused any harm.

FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 21, 2020 file photo Pope Francis exchanges holidays greeting with Vatican employees in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican. Pope Francis has formally stripped the Vatican secretariat of state of its financial assets and real estate holdings following its bungled management of hundreds of millions of euros in donations and investments. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)ROME – Pope Francis has formally stripped the Vatican secretariat of state of its financial assets and real estate holdings following its bungled management of hundreds of millions of euros in donations and investments that are now the subject of a corruption investigation. Francis signed a new law over the weekend ordering the secretariat of state to complete the transfer of all its holdings to another Vatican office by Feb. 4. Francis moved against his own secretariat of state amid an 18-month investigation by Vatican prosecutors into the office’s 350-million-euro investment into a luxury residential building in London’s Chelsea neighborhood and other speculative funds.

Cardinal George Pell writes book about his time in prison Acquitted of child sex abuse charges, Cardinal George Pell wrote a book about his experience in prison. Foreign correspondent Chris Livesay sat down with the former Vatican treasurer, who had served more than a year of his six-year sentence before Australia's High Court overturned his conviction.

Cardinal George Pell answers' a journalists question during an interview with the Associated Press inside his residence near the Vatican in Rome, Monday, Nov. 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)ROME – The pope’s former treasurer, Cardinal George Pell, said Monday he feels a dismayed sense of vindication as the financial mismanagement he tried to uncover in the Holy See is now being exposed in a spiraling Vatican corruption investigation. After more than a year of investigation, no one has been indicted, though a handful of Vatican officials and Italian businessmen are under investigation. Pell, with his rather brusque, no-nonsense Australian sensibilities, clashed frequently with the Vatican’s Italian old guard as he sought to get a handle on the Vatican’s assets and spending. After Pell returned to Rome last month, he had a well-publicized private audience with Francis.

But the enormous international interest in an Australian criminal trial with global ramifications highlighted the difficulty in enforcing such orders in the digital age. No foreign news organization has been charged with breaching the suppression order. The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment would prevent such censorship in the United States, so attempting to extradite an American for breaching an Australian suppression order would be futile. “We are not breaching the suppression order, just explaining why we can’t report on the story.”The media defendants have not said what their defense is to be in the court case. De Ferrari said some of the individuals charged had said they were not aware that a suppression order existed.

FILE - In this Dec. 21, 2017 file photo, Pope Francis talks to Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on the occasion of his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican. (Claudio Peri/pool photo via AP)ROME – Pope Francis is giving the Vatican secretariat of state three months to transfer all of its financial holdings to another Vatican office following its bungled management of hundreds of millions of euros in donations and investments that are now the subject of a corruption investigation. The Vatican released the letter that Francis wrote to Parolin on Aug. 25 in which he announced he was stripping the secretariat of state of its ability to independently manage the money. Its financial holdings are now to be held by the Vatican's treasury office, known as APSA and incorporated into the Holy See's consolidated budget, Francis wrote. Francis moved against his own secretariat of state amid a year-long investigation by Vatican prosecutors into the office's 350-million-euro investment into a luxury residential building in London's Chelsea neighborhood.

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican's latest corruption scandal already had all the elements of a spy thriller: One cardinal who was fired during a “surreal" nighttime audience with the pope. Another cardinal, the nemesis of the first, who returned triumphantly to Rome after being acquitted of sexual abuse in Australia. Enter Cecilia Marogna, a 39-year-old political consultant who was arrested Tuesday in Milan on an international warrant issued by the Vatican, Italy's financial police confirmed Wednesday. According to Vatican documents published in Italian newspapers and shown on investigative television shows this week, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the onetime No. Italian Vatican commentator Luis Badilla, writing in the much-read Vatican blog Il Sismografo, has noted that that the new president of the Vatican criminal tribunal, a former Italian magistrate, is also an editorial commentator for Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, whose expose last month led to Becciu's ouster.

FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2020 file photo, Vatican Swiss Guards stand attention at the St. Damaso courtyard on the occasion of their swearing-in ceremony, at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020. On Monday, Oct. 12, 2020, the Vatican said in a statement that four Swiss Guards have tested positive for the coronavirus, as the surge in infections in surrounding Italy enters the Vatican walls. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)ROME – Four Swiss Guards have tested positive for coronavirus and were showing symptoms, the Vatican said Monday, as the surge in infections in surrounding Italy penetrates the Vatican walls. The Swiss Guards, the world’s oldest standing army, provide ceremonial guard duty during papal Masses, man the Vatican gates and help protect the 83-year-old Pope Francis. They join three other Vatican residents who tested positive in recent weeks plus the dozen or so Holy See officials who tested positive during the first wave of the outbreak.

Cardinal George Pell has a drink in a cafe at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020. Corriere speculated that Becciu might have “bought” the testimony of Pell’s accuser to get Pell out of the Vatican. Becciu and Pell were known to have clashed over the Australian’s financial clean-up efforts at the Holy See. “In relation to what has been published by some organs of information, I categorically deny any interference in the trial of Cardinal Pell,” Becciu said in a statement released by his lawyer, Fabio Viglione. The Victoria Police media unit said Monday they couldn’t find any record that the Vatican had alleged witnesses against Pell were bribed with Vatican money.

FILE - In this Feb. 27, 2019, file photo, Cardinal George Pell arrives at the County Court in Melbourne, Australia. The report by a vocal champion of the cardinal did not cite a source for the cardinal's plans. Pell’s reported return follows Francis last week firing one of the cardinal’s most powerful opponents, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, over a financial scandal. In his first television interview after his release, conducted by Bolt in April, Pell linked his fight against Vatican corruption with his prosecution in Australia. “I hope the cleaning of the stables continues in both the Vatican and Victoria,” Pell said, referring to his home state of Victoria where he was convicted.

Australia's highest court on Tuesday unanimously dismissed the convictions of the most senior Catholic found guilty of child sex abuse. Cardinal George Pell soon will be released from Barwon Prison outside Melbourne after serving 13 months of a six-year sentence. Pell was also convicted of indecently assaulting one of the boys by painfully squeezing his genitals after a Mass in early 1997. But in the decision announced by High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel, the seven judges found that the appeals court was incorrect. The two appeals court judges who had upheld the convictions had found the former choirboy a "compelling witness," the High Court said in a statement.

(CNN) - Former Vatican treasurer George Pell will remain in prison after an Australian appeals court rejected the disgraced cardinal's appeal against his conviction for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old choirboys in the mid-1990s. The man told the court Pell had caught them drinking wine and said something like "you're in trouble," according to Judge Kidd's summary of the case. At one stage, Pell told them to be quiet, "because they were crying," Judge Kidd recounted. When Pell's guilty verdict was made public, the Vatican said it would launch its own investigation into Pell. Pell has 28 days to appeal Wednesday's ruling in Australia's High Court, the country's highest-ranking court.