George Pell is the most hated man in Australia, if the media is to be believed. He has been called "scum", a "coward", "sociopathic" and a protector of pedophile priests. The royal commission into child sex abuse in institutions virtually called him a liar to his face last week. It called excuses "implausible " - the excuses that he knew nothing of the pedophile priests around him and was lied to by the bosses and colleagues who protected them. But just as implausible, it seems to me, is that George Pell - the third most senior Catholic in the world - would knowingly turn a blind eye while his colleagues raped children, and that he would then tell lie after lie about it over four days in the witness box last week. Moreover, he would do all this without the royal commission being able to discover a single proof of it. And to add to that implausibility, Pell would be party to this ghastly cover up, yet would later create the first church fund to compensate victims, reform church procedures to ensure pedophile priests could never flourish in the Australian church, and then move to the Vatican to clean up astonishing financial corruption reaching to almost the very top. So which of these two improbable scenarios should you believe? Pell the monster or Pell the innocent and reformer? Let me tell you what I have finally concluded after extensive investigation and sometime agonising reflection. I have heard Pell give 19 hours of evidence under hostile cross examination. I've read extensively the case against him put by prominent media figures. I've spoken to five victims. I have met Pell four times in the past, albeit never for long. I have read some of his sermons. I've spoken to friends and colleagues of his. Last week I spoke to Pell for about six hours in Rome, including one hour before the Sky News camerasone hour before the Sky News cameras, during which I put to him every question that was bothering me. On Friday I even sat in on a private meeting at the Vatican between Pell and priests from America and Australia as he spoke very frankly about corruption in his church. Importantly, I have questioned my own predisposition to give Pell the benefit of the doubt, and last week even wrote a piece damning his recordwrote a piece damning his record after he made a shocking comment in the witness box - a comment I and most other journalists misinterpreted as meaning he'd had no interest in abused children. I felt seduced by the media praise when I did this, and know I would have been hailed as a hero if I'd kept kicking him, rather thanapologising after I rechecked the transcript and realised my mistakeapologising after I rechecked the transcript and realised my mistake. But in the end, I had to follow the evidence and make a judgement of the man I came to know pretty well. And it is this: George Pell is innocent. Pell was not part of a cover-up of pedophile priests. He is not a "coward". He is not "scum". He is not as emotionless as he seems. Moreover, I find it almost impossible to believe Victoria Police is now taking seriously claims that Pell himself abused between five and 10 boys, not one of whom has come forward to the royal commission. And, yes, he is the victim of a witch hunt. It is true that he was blind as a priest in Ballarat to tiny warning signs and at times showed a lack of initiative in chasing up vague complaints. But how many more people were just as guilty, or far more? The evidence to the royal commission shows that even parents of those hundreds of victims did not believe their own children, or did not know they'd been abused or did not go to the police. Even when the son of a policeman was molested by the worst pedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, no charges were laid. None of the policemen in three towns where Ridsdale molested children knew of the pedophilia or took action. None of the drinkers of the Apollo Bay pub - who the royal commission said knew Ridsdale molested children - went to the police. The Solicitor General of Victoria decline to prosecute another pedophile priest. None of the parents of children who swam naked in a river with one priest insisted on his sacking. Virtually no country journalists knew of the pedophile priests in their towns or reported it. So why is it Pell, of all these people, who has been grilled for such marathon lengths of time - when he was neither a perpetrator nor a proven protector of pedophiles? You may be still convinced Pell did cover up and is now lying about it. But test yourself, to make sure you are not being unjust to an individual in your fury at his church. Watch my interview with George Pell.Watch my interview with George Pell. Is this the monster you mean? UPDATE Apologies. I had the wrong link to the interview. Watch itherehere. I blame jet lag.