Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty of child sex abuse.

Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, raped a choirboy in the 1990s and molested another.

His victims were two boys.

The pair “nicked off” after a Sunday solemn mass in late 1996 and were caught swigging sacramental wine in the priest’s sacristy by Pell, newly installed as Archbishop of Melbourne.

Pell scolded them, exposed his penis from beneath the ornate ceremonial robes, and molested them.

A Melbourne jury in December found Pell guilty of five charges – one of sexually penetrating a child and four of committing indecent acts with children.

That verdict was made public on Tuesday after months of procedural secrecy, and the abandonment of a second trial over allegations Pell indecently assaulted boys in Ballarat in the 1970s.

Pell has maintained his innocence over all allegations and has lodged an appeal of his conviction.

One of the victims, now in his 30s, brought the allegations to police after years of having struggled to understand what he’d experienced.

A month or so after he was raped by Pell he was sexually assaulted again, pushed against a cathedral wall by the now-Cardinal who fondled his genitals.

Pell’s other victim died in 2014 in accidental circumstances.

Top defence barrister Robert Richter QC represented Pell in the trial, and during an earlier trial in which the jury was discharged after failing to reach a verdict.

Mr Richter failed to convince the latest jury that the cathedral’s processes were so seamless that two boys simply could not have “nicked off” unseen.

He argued the allegations were a “far-fetched fantasy”, that Pell was always accompanied after mass and that the cumbersome robes would have prevented him revealing his genitals.

“Only a madman would attempt to rape boys in the priest’s sacristy immediately after Sunday solemn mass,” he told the jury.

Pell, who was physically ailing during the trial and on crutches before a double knee replacement over Christmas, remains on bail.

He’s due to return to the County Court for a plea hearing on February 27.

Chief Judge Peter Kidd is due to sentence him in March.