Former Wollongong priest, now Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli still says he believes convicted pedophile George Pell is innocent, and suggested the sole living victim got the name of his abuser wrong.
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A day after Victoria's Court of Appeal upheld Pell's conviction for the rape of a 13-year-old choirboy and sexual assault of another at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral in 1996, Archbishop Comensoli said while he respected the courts, he also believed his friend and will continue to visit him in prison.
"I believe in what he said to me, on many occasions, that he's innocent and I continue to be really quite shocked with all of how things are developed," Archbishop Comensoli told Melbourne's 3AW radio station on Thursday.
But he also went on to say he also believed the victim who came forward to police was abused within the church - but questioned whether it was Pell who abused him.
"I believe both (men)," Archbishop Comensoli said.
"I genuinely think that I can take on my knowledge of the man in terms of George Pell and accept what he has said to me, I can also take on what I've heard of (the victim) and what he said in terms of abuse."
The fallen Cardinal, who was once among the most powerful figures in the Vatican, now has 28 days to apply for appeal to the High Court. That application needs to be granted before it can be heard.
If Pell, 78, is unsuccessful and remains in prison, he could die in there, Archbishop Comensoli said.
The Vatican press office released a statement acknowledging the Court of Appeal's decision and said it would wait until any further appeals are exhausted before taking action.
One of Pell's victims died in 2014, while the other gave evidence at his trial.
In their 325-page decision on Wednesday, Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and President Chris Maxwell found that man, now in his 30s, came across as truthful.
But in his dissenting judgment, Justice Mark Weinberg highlighted inconsistencies in the victim's evidence.
Archbishop Peter Andrews Comensoli had a personal connection to clergy abuse. His cousin, the disgraced former Wollongong priest Peter Lewis Comensoli, admitted to molesting boys in Wollongong in the 1980s.
- AAP