Pell: Hero of the Church and Victim of Abuse Hoax
Pell was a football star at school. He earned a doctorate in church history from Oxford, and was ordained a priest in 1966 in the Old Rite.
He became an an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne (1996), Melbourne Archbishop (1996), Sydney Archbishop (2001), and Cardinal (2003). He was responsible for many fine episcopal appointments throughout Australia.
Benedict XVI named him Prefect of the newly created Vatican Secretariat for the Economy (2014). Because he started cleaning up the Vatican's Augeas stable, he lost Francis' support.
In 2017, he return to Australia to face allegations of "sexual abuse." It was clear from the start that the allegations were trumped up. Nevertheless, he was found "guilty" and jailed in December 2018. The scandalous conviction was not overturned until April 2020.
Pell returned to Rome. He defended the Roman Rite and should have celebrated the pontifical Mass of the 2023 Paris-Chartres pilgrimage.
In a 2015 interview to Gloria.tv he said that the “Old Rite brings across the importance of transcendence.” However, he didn’t consider the Roman Liturgy as “the key to the future” but only as a "beautiful and essential part of our patrimony.”
Picture: © Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk, CC BY-NC-ND, #newsTofwmrjptf