Cardinal George Pell said his acquittal on appeal against child sex charges on Tuesday remedied "a serious injustice", but that he held "no ill will" towards his accuser.
"I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough," the cleric said in a statement issued before his imminent release from prison.
Pell added that his trial "was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of paedophilia in the Church".