Cardinal Pell, Critic of the English Hierarchy and No Fan of the Tablet, Takes Charge of the World's Catholic Bishops, Damian Thompson, Telegraph, May 5, 2010

Cardinal Pell, Critic of the English Hierarchy and No Fan of the Tablet, Takes Charge of the World's Catholic Bishops

By Damian Thompson
Telegraph
May 5, 2010

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100038095/cardinal-pell-critic-of-the-english-hierarchy-and-no-fan-of-the-tablet-takes-charge-of-the-worlds-catholic-bishops/

Like minds: Cardinal Pell and Pope Benedict

“… I have long been disappointed by The Tablet’s persistent subversions of some Catholic teaching and mystified by the inability of the English bishops to nudge it towards a more productive line of witness …”

Now, you may think it rather bad form of me to resurrect a letter written to the Bitter Pill by Cardinal George Pell back in 2002, but I’m sure Ma Pepinster and the gang have been re-reading it this week. For, according to authoritative sources in Rome, the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney (a Benedict loyalist), is to succeed Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (not a Benedict loyalist) as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. That will give him a significant degree of authority over the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops. He will be able to “nudge” them – for example, to observe the conservative liturgical reforms for which he is partly responsible, such as the new English translation of the Missal.

And he will also have a huge say in who becomes a bishop in England Wales, a Church whose maladministration in recent decades has concerned him greatly. He knows this country well, and from an interesting perspective: while he was studying for his doctorate in church history at Oxford he served as chaplain to Eton. One of his best friends is Fr Alexander Sherbrooke, the OE parish priest of St Patrick’s, Soho, and one of the finest evangelists in London.

Cardinal Pell knows – knows for an absolute fact – that many English bishops are (a) not up to the job intellectually, and (b) passively obstructive towards Summorum Pontificum and Anglicanorum Coetibus. Future bishops will not enjoy the luxury of ignoring papal directives. Indeed, I suspect it won’t be long before certain current bishops have their collars felt. (Sorry to use such crude language, but he is an Aussie, and the way the E&W hierarchy ignores Vatican directives is little short of criminal.)

He’s a fascinating man. I’ll return to the subject in a day or so, spelling out just why the Tabletistas will be so outraged by this news, but let me leave you with a taster of Pell’s plain-spoken approach. In 2007, he tightened up the rules allowing family members to speak at funerals, offering the following typically candid explanation (my emphasis):

“On not a few occasions, inappropriate remarks glossing over the deceased’s proclivities (drinking prowess, romantic conquests etc) or about the Church (attacking its moral teachings) have been made at funeral Masses.”