MELBOURNE: Cardinal George Pell, former Vatican treasurer, was sentenced to six years in jail on Wednesday by an Australian court for sexually abusing two choir boys in Melbourne in the 1990s, and will be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

With the court’s decision,  Pell, 77, could spend the rest of his life in prison, County Court of Victoria Chief Judge Peter Kidd said.

Pell, a former top adviser to Pope Francis, is the most senior Catholic to be convicted of child sex offences.

“In my view, your conduct was permeated by staggering arrogance,” said Kidd in handing down the sentence after Pell was convicted of five charges of sexually abusing two children.

“Viewed overall, I consider your moral culpability across both episodes to be high,” he told the packed court room.

His downfall brings to the heart of the papal administration a scandal over clerical abuse that has ravaged the Church’s credibility in the United States, Chile, Australia and elsewhere over the last three decades.

The offences against two 13-year-old boys took place after Sunday mass in late 1996 and early 1997 in a room and a corridor at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, where Pell was archbishop.

During the trial the victim described how Pell had exposed himself to them, fondled their genitals and masturbated and forced one boy to perform an oral sex act on him.

(Agencies)