Profile: George Pell's career in the Catholic Church

7 News
February 25, 2014

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/21691378/profile-george-pells-career-in-the-catholic-church/

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, has been appointed by Pope Francis as the Prefect for the Economy of the Holy See. Take a look at Cardinal Pell's career in the Catholic Church.

George Pell was born in 1941 in Ballarat and grew up in the western Victorian city, where he attended the Loreto and St Patrick's colleges.

He began his studies into priesthood at Corpus Christi College in Werribee and later travelled to Rome to study at the Propaganda Fide College. In 1966 he was ordained as a Catholic priest and began his work in the Ballarat Diocese.

Over the next 20 years he was heavily involved in Catholic Church organisations, including the Catholic education sector.

He was a founding member of the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria in the 1970s and was principal of the Institute of Catholic Education (now part of the Australian Catholic University).

Cardinal Pell also took on the position of chairman at the church's international aid agency Caritas Australia in 1988 and continued in the role until 1997.

In 1987 Cardinal Pell became an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, working under Archbishop Sir Frank Little.

He took over the position of Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, under the appointment of Pope John Paul II and remained in this position until 2001, when he was elevated to the Metropolitan Archbishop of Sydney.

In 2003 Pope John Paul II appointed Cardinal Pell to the Sacred College of Cardinals.

This elevation meant Cardinal Pell would play a vital role in appointing the Pope's successor. In the same year he was awarded the Centenary Medal by the Australian Government for services to Australia.

In 2005 Cardinal Pell was recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours and was made a Companion in the Order of Australia for his service to the Catholic Church in Australia.

After the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, Cardinal Pell travelled to Rome as the only Australian member of the Catholic Church with the right to vote for the new pope.

When Pope Benedict XVI was elected, Cardinal Pell said he believed the new Pope's approach had the potential to increase church attendance in the West.

In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI made a surprise announcement that he would resign from his position. At the time of the resignation Cardinal Pell was critical of the Vatican's governance.

"I think the governance is done by people around the Pope and that wasn't always done brilliantly," he said at the time.

"I'm not breaking any ground there, this is said very commonly."

After the appointment of Pope Francis, Cardinal Pell was one of seven selected to advise the Pope on church reforms, aimed at making changes to the Curia which had been blamed for many of the scandals plaguing the church.

At the time Cardinal Pell welcomed the opportunity to offer different perspectives to the Curia.

"Most of the people who work in the Curia are fine people. There were one or two mishaps," he said.

"Quite a few Italians work in the Curia. The chairman of this group is an Italian, Cardinal Bertelo.

"But I think different perspectives will be useful and I think a few English-speaking perspectives won't hurt."

That appointment paved the way for Cardinal Pell to take on a higher position in the church, culminating in his new appointment as Prefect for the Economy of the Holy See.

In the role, Cardinal Pell will be responsible for preparing the Vatican's annual budget, as well as financial planning and enhanced internal controls.

The Cardinal will report directly to the Pope, putting his role on a similar level to that of the Vatican's Secretary of State. While Cardinal Pell will not be directly in charge of the troubled Vatican Bank, he will be responsible for overseeing the efficiency of the Holy See's internal operations, a role similar to that of a finance minister.

Cardinal Pell will leave his role as the Archbishop of Sydney in order to take up his new position.

Cardinal Pell has been an outspoken critic on many social and political issues, and found himself under fire over church procedures.

In 2007 Cardinal Pell was embroiled in a stoush with New South Wales politicians over a bill that would allow stem cell research in the state. At the time Cardinal Pell threatened to refuse communion to MPs who voted in support of the bill.

"It is a perverse new direction in human experimentation," Cardinal Pell said.

"I don't think that any Catholic politician, any Christian politician, any pro-life politician who has properly informed his or her conscience should vote for these changes."

The bill was passed by the parliament.

Over the years Cardinal Pell has also spoken out against the use of abortion drug RU486, an Australian charter of human rights, and in 2011 backed claims by the Pope that condoms were aggravating the AIDS problem in Africa.

"They're encouraging promiscuity because they're encouraging irresponsibility," he said.

"The idea that you can solve a great spiritual and health crisis like AIDS with a few mechanical contraptions like condoms is ridiculous."

As allegations of sexual assault within the Catholic Church surfaced, Cardinal Pell found himself under scrutiny for his handling of the issue. The Archbishop of Sydney defended his response to allegations of abuse within the church dating back to the 1960s.

In 2012 he accused the media of a campaign against the Catholic Church, after the Gillard government called for a nation-wide inquiry into institutionalised abuse.

"We are not interested in denying the extent of misdoing in the Catholic Church," he said.

"We object to [the extent of misdoing] being exaggerated, we object to being described as the only cab on the rank."

Last year Cardinal Pell faced the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse over the Church's systemic cover-up of cases of sexual abuse. He told the inquiry several factors, including celibacy, could have contributed to the high levels of abuse seen in the Victorian Catholic Church.

"Also... the entry procedures, the criteria, the searching, the investigation of candidates back say in the middle of last century was much too loose," he said.

In December last year Pope Francis, after a meeting with the Council of Cardinals which includes Cardinal Pell, announced he would set up a commission to tackle the sexual abuse of children by priests.