How did George Pell get to where he was?

Monday, March 4th, 2019

The world now knows Cardinal George Pell was convicted in December of child sexual abuse.

Lamentable as that is, the question on many Catholics’ minds is how did he reach such a position of eminence in the Catholic Church?

La Croix International’s commentator Eric Hodgens has told the story of his rise in Australia and how it led to his visibility in the Vatican

But the abiding questions are two:

How did he get to the Vatican and to a position of such significance in the administration of Vatican finances with what it now appears to be so much baggage?
Why did Pope Francis appoint him to the kitchen cabinet at the Vatican – the C9 – at the center of the reform of the Church?

The answers are relatively simple.

The easiest is his membership of the C9 kitchen cabinet. It is composed of Cardinals from different geographic regions. At the time of its formation, Pell was the only cardinal in Oceania. It’s not a race when there’s only one competitor!

However, there are three reasons why Cardinal Pell reached the Vatican and they are very revealing for those who want to know how the Vatican actually works.

As the “numbers man” for a competitor to Pope Francis he needed to be taken seriously.

The first reason was that Cardinal Pell was a significant figure at the time Pope Francis was elected Pope.

He was believed to be the person organizing the numbers for the election of the candidate for the papacy preferred by Pope Benedict – Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan.

Cardinal Scola was such a favorite among the Italians that when the white smoke appeared to say a candidate had been elected, the local bishops’ conference sent him a congratulatory note, only to be disappointed when it turned out to be someone else – Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Buenos Aires!

As the “numbers man” for a competitor to Pope Francis he needed to be taken seriously.

During the previous two pontificates, Pell had become a well-known and influential figure in Rome.

He was a member of two of the most significant Congregations in the Vatican bureaucracy – Bishops and Doctrine of the Faith – and so became a force to be reckoned with.

Pell’s prominence would lead any new pope to the advice of Machiavelli: keep your friends close and your enemies closer!

Having Cardinal Pell in the inner circle means that what he has to say and do was far easier to inspect than it would be from the distance of Australia.

But there was an extra advantage to having him in Rome.

A physically powerful character and charmingly persuasive personality when he wanted to be, Pell dominated many of the circumstances he moved in.

He towered over the Australian bishops.

Interestingly, they never elected him to be President of their Conference.

Pell specialized in tactics that circled around any group that got in his way as he headed for influence over the key decision maker.

At the first of the two family Synod gatherings, he organized a letter to Francis from 13 eminent Synod Fathers warning the pope not to soften in the pastoral treatment of divorced and remarried Catholics.

The move unraveled when the letter was leaked and Pell’s ruse exposed.

It was living proof that Pell’s presence on the world stage and exposure to peers who would call his bluff meant he could no longer hold sway as he once had from the remoteness of Australia.

The scrutiny of better qualified and critical peers became another way his power surges and bullying behavior had become contained.

But his arrival in Rome had other reasons than simply containing his impact on a pontificate he never warmed to.

Pell was generally unpopular as archbishop in both Sydney and the See he led before Sydney – Melbourne which is the largest archdiocese in Australia.

His departure from Sydney was a relief to many Catholics of that city and beyond, defusing the Catholic culture wars and allowing the church to regroup after almost two decades during which Pell was the most visible, divisive and controversial Catholic in the country.

But there was one more reason to welcome Pell to Rome.

The Vatican’s finances – a small affair by comparison with what he had been responsible for in Sydney and Melbourne whose assets, staff numbers and turnover dwarf the Vatican – were a running sore for the popes for decades.

When Pope Francis came to Rome, he had a simple solution: close the Vatican’s bank and hand financial responsibility to a suitably qualified and professional organization whose dedicated task was transparency and accountability – virtues never reached by the Vatican’s bank.

The fact that the Vatican bank – the IOR – was a purpose built entity during WW2 which did not collapse with the Italian finance system, meant those influential in the Vatican prevailed on the new pope to retain the institution. But who could run it?

Enter George Pell. Though his reputation in Australia was one for being a big spender, internationally he appears to have developed a name for administrative and financial skills.

The fit was perfect: Pell got a job Francis didn’t really care about.

This all came to an end last October when his resignation was accepted – long before his conviction in December.

Now that the conviction has been made public, Pell will be sentenced and then appeal against the conviction.

That will be a long and difficult process because the only real grounds of appeal will be that the presiding judge made errors during the course of the case or in his instructions to the jury.

Judge Kidd, who heard the case is Chief Judge of the County Court of the State of Victoria, is highly respected by his peers.

Only time will tell on the appeal.

Whatever the outcome of the appeal, there are still volumes yet to be released by the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse that ended in early 2018. Whether George Pell figures in those volumes and will face charges following referrals from the Commission to the Director of Public Prosecutions is another matter for time.