CARDINAL George Pell has today lost an appeal against his convictions for child sex abuse in Australia.

The paedo priest – who had been treasurer at the Vatican – will be jailed for six years after a court upheld his December 2018 convictions.

Pell – Pope Francis' former finance minister – had been found guilty of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne's St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1996 and 1997.

At the time, he had just become archbishop of Australia's second largest city and had set up a world-first compensation scheme for victims of clerical sexual abuse.

He is the most senior Catholic to be found guilty of sexually abusing children.

The Victoria state Court of Appeal rejected the 78-year-old's appeal by a 2-1 majority ruling on Wednesday morning local time.

His lawyers are expected to launch a final appeal against the decision in Australia's High Court.

PAROLE AT 81

Pell will be eligible for parole in October 2022 – when he will be 81.

He showed no emotion when Chief Justice Anne Ferguson read the verdict to a packed courtroom but bowed his head moments later.

Pell wore a cleric's collar but not his cardinal's ring.

He had arrived at the court in a prison van and was handcuffed as he was led away by a guard.

The Vatican, which is conducting its own investigation into sex abuse allegations against Pell, was expected to comment on the court's ruling later on Wednesday.

KICKED OUT OF VATICAN

Pell is no longer a member of Pope Francis' council of cardinals or a Vatican official.

One of the choirboys – identified by the sentencing judge as J.J. – was the key prosecution witness.

His friend – named only as M.R – died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 31 without ever complaining he had been abused.

Pell did not testify at either of his trials.

But jurors saw a video of a police interview of him in Rome in 2016 in which Pell rejected the allegations as "absolutely disgraceful rubbish" and a "deranged falsehood."

It comes as clerical sex abuse and the Catholic church's handling of cases worldwide continue to throw Francis' papacy into turmoil.

In little more than a year, a French cardinal was convicted of failing to report a paedophile, and US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, was defrocked after a Vatican investigation found he molested children and adults.

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