George Pell
George Pell was an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church.
Pell served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican from 2014 to 2019 and a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers from 2013 to 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made a cardinal in 2003. Pell served as the eighth Archbishop of Sydney, the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne and an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne. He was also an author and columnist. A conservative, Pell maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining an adherence to Catholic orthodoxy.
Pell worked as a priest in rural Victoria and in Melbourne and also chaired the aid organisation Caritas Australia from 1988 to 1997. He was appointed a delegate to the Australian Constitutional Convention in 1998, received the Centenary Medal from the Australian government in 2003 and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours. During his tenure as Archbishop of Melbourne, Pell set up the "Melbourne Response" protocol in 1996 to investigate and deal with complaints of child sexual abuse in the archdiocese. The protocol was the first of its kind in the world and was subjected to a variety of criticism.
In 2018, Pell was convicted of child sexual abuse, and served 404 days in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. On appeal the convictions were quashed and Pell acquitted in 2020 by the High Court of Australia in the decision Pell v The Queen. A separate investigation by the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into these allegations of abuse concluded upon his acquittal by the High Court. However, in January 2025 it was announced that the Australian National Redress Scheme, a non-judicial program, had accepted that Pell abused two boys in Ballarat in the 1970s, with compensation paid to one of the boys in question five weeks prior to Pell's death.
According to findings released by Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2020, Pell knew of child sexual abuse by clergy by the 1970s but did not take adequate action to address it. Pell said he was "surprised" and that the royal commission's findings "are not supported by evidence".
Early life and education
Pell was born on 8 June 1941 in Ballarat, Victoria, to George Arthur and Margaret Lillian Pell. His father was a non-practising Anglican whose ancestors were from Leicestershire in England; he was also a heavyweight boxing champion. His mother was a devout Catholic of Irish descent. As a child, Pell underwent 24 operations to remove an abscess in his throat.Pell attended Loreto Convent and St Patrick's College in Ballarat. At St Patrick's, he played Australian rules football as a ruckman on the first XVIII from 1956 to 1959. He reportedly signed with the Richmond Football Club in 1959. Pell's ambitions later turned to the priesthood. Speaking of his decision to enter seminary, Pell once said, "To put it crudely, I feared and suspected and eventually became convinced that God wanted me to do His work, and I was never able to successfully escape that conviction."
In 1960, Pell began his studies for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College, then located in Werribee. He continued to play football and served as class prefect in his second and third years. In 1963, he was assigned to continue studies at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome. He was ordained to the diaconate on 15 August 1966.
Ecclesiastical career
Priesthood
On 16 December 1966, Pell was ordained a priest by Cardinal Gregorio Pietro Agagianian at St. Peter's Basilica. He received a Licentiate of Sacred Theology degree from the Pontificia Università Urbaniana in 1967, and continued his studies at the University of Oxford where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in church history in 1971 with a thesis entitled "The exercise of authority in early Christianity from about 170 to about 270". During his studies at Oxford he also served as a chaplain to Catholic students at Eton College.In 1971, Pell returned to Australia and was assigned to serve as an assistant priest in Swan Hill, where he remained for two years. He then served at a parish in Ballarat East from 1973 to 1983, becoming administrator of the parish of Bungaree in 1984. In 1982, he earned a Master of Education degree from Monash University in Melbourne. During his tenure in Ballarat East and Bungaree, he also served as Episcopal Vicar for Education, director of the Aquinas campus of the Institute of Catholic Education and principal of the Institute of Catholic Education. He was also editor of Light, the newspaper of the Diocese of Ballarat, from 1979 to 1984.
From 1985 to 1987, Pell served as seminary rector of his alma mater, Corpus Christi College.
Diocesan episcopal career
Pell was appointed an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne and titular bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scala on 30 March 1987. He received his episcopal consecration on 21 May 1987 from Archbishop Frank Little, with bishops Ronald Mulkearns and Joseph O'Connell serving as co-consecrators. He served as Bishop for the Southern Region of Melbourne. During this time, he was a parish priest in Mentone.Pell was named seventh Archbishop of Melbourne on 16 July 1996, receiving the pallium from Pope John Paul II on 29 June 1997. He was later appointed eighth Archbishop of Sydney on 26 March 2001 and again received the pallium from John Paul on 29 June 2001.
Pell was a consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1990 to 1995 and a member from 2002. From 1990 to 2000 he was a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In April 2002, John Paul II named him President of the Vox Clara commission to advise the Congregation for Divine Worship on English translations of liturgical texts. On 21 December 2002 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, having previously served as a consultor to the council. On 22 September 2012, Pell was appointed a member of the Congregation for Bishops.
As Archbishop of Melbourne, Pell maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining a strict adherence to Catholic orthodoxy; with some dispute over the issue of Catholics and primacy of conscience.
In 2001, he argued: "We must not allow the situation to deteriorate as it had in Elijah's time, 850 years before Christ, where monotheism was nearly swamped by the aggressive paganism of the followers of Baal." In 2010, on reviewing the movie Avatar, he wrote: "Worship of the powerful forces of nature is half right, a primitive stage in the movement towards acknowledging the one: the single Transcendent God, above and beyond nature. It is a symptom of our age that Hollywood is pumping out this old-fashioned pagan propaganda."
Pope John Paul II announced on 28 September 2003 that he would appoint Pell and 28 others to the College of Cardinals. In the consistory of 21 October he was made cardinal priest of Santa Maria Domenica Mazzarello. With Pell as cardinal, Australia had, for the first time, three cardinals eligible to participate in a papal election: Pell, Edward Bede Clancy and Edward Idris Cassidy.
Pell was one of the cardinal electors in 2005 who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI. He is reported to have served as an unauthorised "campaign manager" for Ratzinger. Pell was mentioned as a possible successor to Benedict XVI as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Pell instituted new guidelines in February 2007 for family members speaking at funerals. He said that, "on not a few occasions, inappropriate remarks glossing over the deceased's proclivities or about the church have been made at funeral Masses." Under Pell's guidelines, the eulogy must never replace the celebrant's homily, which should focus on the scripture readings selected, God's compassion, and the resurrection of Jesus.
Pell lobbied for the successful Sydney bid to host the 2008 World Youth Day, which brought Benedict XVI on his first papal visit to Australia. The event drew approximately half a million young people from 200 countries, and one million people came to see the Pope. On 19 July 2008, Benedict issued his first public apology to victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
In their 2010 Good Friday sermons, both Pell and his Anglican counterpart Archbishop Peter Jensen attacked atheism. Both men were also closely aligned on policy issues and Jensen launched Pell's biography.
On 18 September 2012, Pell was named by Benedict XVI to be one of the papally appointed Synod Fathers for the October 2012 Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.
Pell was the only cardinal from Oceania to take part in the 2013 papal conclave. At that conclave, he was thought to be organising votes on behalf of Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, the favourite candidate of the Italian cardinals.
Following his election, Pope Francis named Pell, the only non-retired cardinal available to represent Oceania, one of eight members to advise the Pope on reform of the Vatican bureaucracy, called the Roman Curia; they were appointed to five-year terms.
Secretariat for the Economy
In February 2014, Pell was appointed to be the first prefect of the newly created Secretariat for the Economy. In this role, Pell was responsible for the annual budget of the Holy See and the Vatican. In July 2014 Pell, with the consent of Pope Francis, had the Ordinary Section of Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See transferred to the Secretariat for the Economy to enable the Secretariat to exercise economic control and vigilance over the agencies of the Holy See. It was also announced that remaining staff of APSA would begin to focus exclusively on its role as a treasury for the Holy See and the Vatican City State.Following the confirmation of the mission of the Institute for the Works of Religion by the Pope on 7 April 2014, the IOR announced plans for the next stage of development. The Council of Cardinal Advisers, the Secretariat for the Economy, the Supervisory Commission of Cardinals, and the IOR Board of Superintendence agreed that this plan would be carried out by a new executive team led by Jean-Baptiste de Franssu.
Pell was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples on 13 September 2014. In November 2014, the Secretariat for the Economy distributed a new handbook to all Vatican offices outlining financial management policies that would go into effect on 1 January 2015. The manual was endorsed by the Council for the Economy and approved by the Pope. "The purpose of the manual is very simple," said Pell, "it brings Financial Management practices in line with international standards and will help all Entities and Administrations of the Holy See and the Vatican City State prepare financial reports in a consistent and transparent manner." In 2015, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio questioned the scope of the authority given to the Secretariat and to Pell himself, specifically the consolidation of management and not the demand for transparency.
On 12 December 2018, the Vatican announced that Pell was one of three "more elderly" cardinals who were to leave the Pope's Council of Cardinal Advisers after a five-year term. The three were also thanked by the Pope for their service. On 24 February 2019, his five-year term as Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy expired.