Cardinal George Pell has been taken into custody and will spend his first night in a jail cell for sexually abusing two choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral.

Pell will be sentenced on March 13.

Pell was found guilty in December of orally raping a 13-year-old boy and molesting another after Sunday mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in East Melbourne in 1996.

At the conclusion of a pre-sentence hearing on Wednesday, Pell was remanded in custody by County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd.

AAP