The verdict was announced in December of last year, but a court suppression order meant that Australian media outlets have been unable to report the verdict before now.
Pell was declared guilty on all charges, which included sexual penetration of a child under 16, as well as four counts of committing an indecent act with, or in the presence, of a child.
The offences occurred in 1996, when Pell was the archbishop of Melbourne.
Pell abused the two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral after celebrating one of his first Sunday masses as archbishop.
He abused one of the boys a second time, two months later.
According to the testimony of one of the victims, whose identity remains undisclosed, the two boys were choristers in the St Patrick’s Cathedral choir as part of a music program run by the school.
After singing at Sunday mass in late December of 1996, the boys split off from the rest of the group and proceeded into the priest’s sacristy to explore.
The sacristy is a room at the rear of the cathedral used by priests to dress.
It was out-of-bounds for all choir members.
The former choirboy said they “were being naughty kids having a look around” when they came across a bottle of altar wine and began to swig from it.
Pell then appeared in the doorway, alone and dressed in his archbishop’s robes.
“He ... said something like ‘what are you doing in here?’ or ‘you’re in trouble’,” his victim told the trial.
"There was this moment where we all just froze and then he undid his trousers or his belt, like he started moving underneath his robes," the victim said.
Pell then pulled one of the boys aside and pushed his head down to his exposed penis.
Pell then forced the other choirboy to perform oral sex on him before fondling him as he masturbated.
The former choirboy told the court that two months later, Pell briefly pushed him against a corridor wall and molested him.
During the trial, Pell refused to bear witness.
Instead, the defence relied on witnesses who attempted to question whether the events could possibly have occurred unnoticed.
The only time Pell’s voice was heard in court was when a video of a 2016 interview between him and police was played.
In that interview, Pell denied the allegations, describing them as “products of fantasy”.
“What a load of absolute and disgraceful rubbish,” Pell told the detective forcefully.
Reporting on the trial was banned until delivery of a verdict in another case against Pell had been made, which involved charges of sexual offences in a Ballarat swimming pool in the 1970s.
Those charges have now been dropped.
Prior to the accusations, George Pell was the treasurer of the Vatican and the Holy See in Rome, a notable position which ranked him as third in charge after the Pope.
He will now be held behind bars ahead of his sentencing next week.
