Cardinal Pell, the 77-year-old sex offender, and former treasurer at the Vatican, has been remanded in custody for his own protection, after crowds gathered outside the courthouse in Melbourne.
The demonstrators were threatening to do things to him that were almost as bad as he, himself, had done to two underage choir boys back 23 years ago.
In his defense, Pell said that both boys were able to sing in noticably higher voices after he had dealt with them. One of the boys was able to achieve castrato whilst Pell was dealing with him.
At the County Court of Victoria last year, the court was told that Pell was archbishop of Melbourne when he abused two 13-year-old choir boys in a cathedral following a mass, in 1996. He told them they were in trouble for drinking communion wine. They were in trouble, but the wine had little to do with it. Pell forced each boy into indecent acts. He abused one of the boys further in 1997.
The court heard testimony from one of the victims. The other died of a drug overdose in 2014. It's not clear if this had anything to do with his treatment at the hands of Cardinal Pell, and we should guard against speculating upon it.
