Cardinal George Pell has used an Easter opinion piece to argue “God-fearers” are better able to deal with evil and suffering than atheists, pointing to his own experience of “13 months in jail for a crime I didn’t commit”.

Pell was released from prison on Tuesday after Australia’s high court quashed five convictions for child sexual abuse, over allegations he assaulted two choirboys at a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s.

In a piece published in the Australian, Pell wrote that everyone suffered, prompting the questions “Why is there so much evil and suffering? And why did this happen to me?”

But he said that “a fundamental difference between God-fearers and secularists today is found in the approach to suffering”. Pell used his imprisonment to further the point.

“I have just spent 13 months in jail for a crime I didn’t commit, one disappointment after another,” he wrote.

“I knew God was with me, but I didn’t know what He was up to, although I realised He has left all of us free,” Pell wrote. “But with every blow it was a consolation to know I could offer it to God for some good purpose like turning the mass of suffering into spiritual energy.”

Pell wrote that the sexual abuse crisis damaged thousands of victims and that “from many points of view the crisis is also bad for the Catholic church”.

Victoria police charged Pell after a man, known as Witness J, came forward in 2014 alleging he and another choirboy were abused at St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne in 1996.

Witness J, now in his 30s, said he had felt compelled to come forward after the death of the other choirboy.

Pell was convicted by a jury in December 2018. An earlier jury was unable to reach a verdict. Pell appealed his conviction, first unsuccessfully in Victoria’s court of appeal, but then successfully in the high court.

Following the high court’s ruling, Witness J issued a statement in which he accepted the decision and acknowledged that child sexual abuse was difficult to prove to the standard required by the courts.

But he also issued a rallying cry to other survivors.

“I would hate to think that one outcome of this case is that people are discouraged from reporting to the police,” he said.

The Pell matter is still the subject of a civil claim.

The father of the now deceased choirboy is suing the Catholic church and has pledged to continue the case following the quashing of Pell’s conviction.

“We will continue to pursue a civil claim on behalf of our client despite the high court’s ruling,” the man’s lawyer, Lisa Flynn from Shine Lawyers, said. “He has suffered immensely and maintains George Pell was responsible for his son’s sudden downward spiral after he abused his son as a young choirboy.”

In his Easter message, the cardinal also said Christians were better able to deal with the suffering of the coronavirus pandemic. He described it as a unique moment for people of his generation and younger.

“So, too, some would see Covid-19 as a bad time for those who claim to believe in a good and rational God, the Supreme Love and Intelligence, the Creator of the universe,” he said. “And it is a mystery; all suffering, but especially the massive number of deaths through plagues and wars. But Christians can cope with suffering better than the atheists can explain the beauty and happiness of life.”

Australian Associated Press contributed to this report