AUSTRALIA/VATICAN CITY
The Guardian
Kristina Keneally
Cardinal George Pell turned 75 last Wednesday. Usually I don’t mark the birthdays of princes of the church. I’m sure they’ve got enough people around them – fellow cardinals, under-secretaries, Curia officials, Opus Dei acolytes, housekeepers – to organise a cake for morning tea. Besides, there’s nothing I could get for the man who already has everything he ever wanted: a little red hat, a gold ring and the pope’s ear.
But this particular birthday is one in which I thought I might take more than a passing interest. After all, church practice asks cardinals to tender their resignation to the pope at age 75. Kind of like a reverse gift from the birthday boy back to the church.
Before we all get carried away with anticipation that Pell is about to lose his privileged position, allow me to explain: in the Vatican, just because a resignation is offered doesn’t mean it is accepted. This isn’t Australian politics. The pope can pretty much do what he wants with said resignation, including rejecting it outright or filing it in a bottom drawer for when it’s really needed.
Pope Francis is not accepting Pell’s resignation.
Never mind that the Australian government’s royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has twice has twice preferred the evidence of others over Pell’s recollection. Never mind that the cardinal’s third appearance before the commission a few months ago was a public relations disaster. Never mind Pell’s farcical evidence that he knew nothing about rampant sexual abuse in Ballarat because there was a conspiracy to keep him in the dark. Never mind that staff from the Melbourne Catholic Education Office contradicted Pell’s testimony.
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