George Pell, ex-grand financier of the Vatican cleared of sexual assault

A priest from a rural Australian parish who became the Vatican’s grand treasurer, Cardinal George Pell, who died at the age of 81, experienced a meteoric rise, followed by an even more brutal disgrace with an infamous conviction for rape of minors finally quashed by the courts.

For those who admired him, Cardinal Pell embodied with his imposing figure, his eloquence and his outspokenness, Australian Catholic traditionalism, tirelessly defending an Orthodox line within the Church.

It is with the same force that he has always denied having sexually assaulted in the 1990s two altar boys in the sacristy of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. Convicted at first instance and then on appeal, the prelate was finally cleared by the Australian High Court and released after more than a year of imprisonment.

Born in 1941, Mr. Pell grew up in Ballarat, a city in the state of Victoria which owes its prosperity to the Australian gold rush of the 19th century.

An enthusiastic member of his university’s rhetorical team, he also played leading roles in school theater productions and excelled in Australian rules football.

His mother, a devout Catholic, is probably overjoyed, according to the Australian press, that her son is responding to the call of religion. His father, an Anglican, does not understand that the athletic George refuses a golden contract with a great Australian rules football team.

It was in Rome that he conducted part of his studies before being ordained a priest in the diocese of Ballarat in 1966.

Meteoric rise

Its rise is rapid. He was appointed archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, then of Sydney in 2001. In 2003 he entered the college of cardinals, sitting in the conclaves which elected Benedict XVI and then Francis.

He was still Archbishop of Sydney when the newly elected Argentine pontiff chose him in 2013 to be part of the council of nine cardinals (C9) responsible for helping him reform the Curia, the Vatican government.

In February 2014, he became Secretary of the Economy, in charge of a revolution by subjecting the Vatican to strict and transparent international standards. The task aroused great internal resistance in a Roman Curia, accustomed to great financial autonomy.

In front of his faithful as in front of public opinion, the cardinal defends the hard line on subjects such as euthanasia or marriage between people of the same sex. It also rejects climate science and criticism of Australia’s repressive policy towards asylum seekers.

His reputation took a hit, however, when he was accused of covering up the sexual assaults of priests in the state of Victoria.

A national survey of institutional responses in Australia to child sexual abuse between 1950 and 2010 found that in some dioceses more than 15% of priests had sexually abused minors without any investigation. The report counts 4,444 alleged victims.

Cardinal Pell apologizes on behalf of the Church, but says he has no recollection of complaints received for crimes committed by members of the clergy. He nevertheless admits to having “failed” in his management of the pedophile priests of Victoria in the 1970s.

The cardinal’s star ceases to shine when, to the accusations of having covered up pedophile priests, are added those of having been one.

“What a fabric of outrageous lies! he exclaimed at the end of 2016 in front of the Australian police who questioned him in Rome. He however voluntarily returned to Australia in 2017 to face the charges.

“You have a sinking feeling in your stomach,” he told the BBC in 2021 of how he felt when the allegations first surfaced. “I was always determined to fight them, because I was innocent,” he says.

In February 2019, after a resounding trial, he was sentenced to six years in prison by a court in Melbourne. He was dismissed from his post as Economic Secretary of the Vatican, which was about to expire, and was imprisoned in Barwon prison, near Melbourne.

“The worst thing, I guess, was the strip searches. They were brief, humiliating. The ignominy of the thing is probably the worst,” he said after his release.

He was finally cleared with the benefit of the doubt by the Australian High Court in April 2020. Free, he returned five months later to Rome, where he was received by Pope Francis.

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