By John L. Allen Jr.

ROME (Crux) — In reaction to the surprise death of Cardinal George Pell of Australia on Jan. 10, it’s likely that a good deal of media attention will focus on the impact of the conservative wing of the Catholic Church, coming as it does hard on the heels of the recent passing of Pope Benedict XVI.

That’s fair enough since Pope Benedict was, in a sense, the Thinker-in-Chief for conservative Catholicism, while, especially in the English-speaking realm, Cardinal Pell was more akin to its field general. He was a born battler, a former Australian Rules Football star, and the son of a heavyweight boxing champion, who could translate Pope Benedict’s lofty defense of Catholic orthodoxy into the hurly-burly of both secular and ecclesiastical politics.

Over the course of his life, four titanic battles defined much of Cardinal Pell’s public legacy.

• His crusade against what he saw as an anti-Roman effect in Aussie Catholicism, an overemphasis on an egalitarian and “live and let live” ethos that sometimes, as he saw it, translated into going soft on Catholic faith and morals. The effort to bring his country more into the Roman orbit defined much of his career as archbishop of both Melbourne and Sydney in the 1990s and 2000s.
• Defending Catholic orthodoxy on the global stage and in Rome, where Cardinal Pell did everything in his power to promote like-minded conservatives and to resist the inroads of figures he saw as compromised or fuzzy. Among other things, Cardinal Pell played the role of kingmaker among English-speaking cardinals in two conclaves, lobbying successfully for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2005, who became Pope Benedict, and unsuccessfully in 2013 for Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola.
• Pushing honesty and transparency in Vatican finances, a battle he fought at a distance as a member of a Council of Cardinals advising the Prefecture for Economic Affairs under Popes John Paul and Benedict, and which he waged more in earnest as Pope Francis’ first-ever Secretary for the Economy beginning in 2014.
• Cardinal Pell’s struggle to save his own reputation, even his freedom, when charges of sexual abuse were lodged against him in his home country in 2017. After one jury was unable to reach a verdict, a second convicted Cardinal Pell, and he would ultimately spend roughly 400 days in prison before being exonerated by Australia’s highest court in April 2020. Cardinal Pell would publish a three-volume set of memoirs documenting his prison experience.

In each of those battles, Cardinal Pell won some and lost some, but he never lost his zest for the fight. He was an effective leader for those who shared his views because there was no guile about him. One never had the sense of a hidden agenda with Cardinal Pell; it was always right there, in plain view.

Much more will be said about each of these chapters of the George Pell legacy. For now, I’d like to say just a few words about the man I knew, as opposed to the public figure.

The last time I spoke to Cardinal Pell was about three weeks ago. He’d called in part to see how I was doing in my recovery from esophageal surgery last fall but, more to the point, to chide me for a recent article I’d written. I’d called Pope Francis “decisive,” and Cardinal Pell was livid — the pope’s problem, he thundered, is that he routinely fails to act, with his dithering about the German “synodal way” the latest case in point.

Having done everything but call me brain dead, Cardinal Pell concluded by saying, “Well, take care of yourself … we need your voice. Even if you do sometimes muck it up, at least you’re paying attention.” He then hung up without waiting for me to reply.

It was vintage Cardinal Pell.

I’ve known him since his days in Sydney. If memory serves, I think my first interview with him was during the “liturgy wars” in English-speaking Catholicism in the 2000s, when Cardinal Pell led a new commission created in Rome to supervise the translation of liturgical texts into English.

I remember being stunned at how blunt he was, using peppery adjectives to describe a few of his opponents that would never see the light of day in a family newspaper. From that point on, we struck up a sort of symbiotic friendship — Cardinal Pell loved getting the latest Roman gossip, and I always enjoyed his assessments of people and politics.

When I needed somebody of note to speak at the Rome launch of Crux in 2014, Cardinal Pell was happy to step in, and I was thrilled — the launch took place smack dab in the middle of a contentious Synod of Bishops on the Family in which he was, inevitably, a leading voice for the conservative side, which I knew would guarantee media interest in our event.

Cardinal Pell didn’t disappoint. The main bone of contention at that synod was the vexed question of Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, and he made clear what side he was on: “As Christians, we follow Christ,” he said that night. “Some may wish Jesus might have been a little softer on divorce, but he wasn’t. And I’m sticking with him.”

Some years later, his return to Rome after his legal battles in Australia more or less coincided with my return to living here full-time, which gave us the opportunity to see one another more frequently. Over conversations in his Vatican apartment — which, he informed my wife Elise and I, he had swept regularly for electronic surveillance because the Vatican, in his view, has become a “police state” — or over meals at our house and in favorite Rome restaurants, Cardinal Pell would share his ever-colorful assessments of personalities and issues, not to mention his often disparaging take on whatever I’d just written or said.

As the saying goes, George Pell was sometimes wrong but never in doubt.

During one of our recent exchanges, Cardinal Pell speculated that Pope Francis was suffering from an undisclosed illness related to his colon surgery in 2021 and that we’d have a conclave before Christmas. Since the holidays are over, I’d been meaning to call him to rib him about getting that wrong — sadly, now I’ll never have the chance.

To sum up, the George Pell I knew was brash, hilarious, opinionated, and tough as nails. I never worked for him, but I know plenty of people who did, and they say he could be equal parts a bull in a China shop and the most caring father figure you’d ever meet. With Cardinal Pell, literally, you got strong doses of both the bitter and the sweet.

Cardinal Pell thought in “us v. them” terms, and it always irritated him that I tried not to. Yet despite that, he took a genuine interest in my life and career … he was one of the first to call when I was in the hospital in October, and I was especially glad to have his prayers. After all, if Cardinal Pell was even half as forceful with God as he was with everyone else, there’d be no mistaking what he wanted on my behalf!

Of course, I realize he was strong medicine, and he wasn’t everyone’s cup of coffee. With such a polarizing figure, it’s hard to say anything that’s unassailably objective, but here’s my stab at it.

No matter what else one might conclude, from here on out, Roman Catholicism will be just a little less interesting, a little more gray and dull, because George Pell isn’t around. He will be missed … by many, many people, and certainly by me.

Requiescat in pace.

By Elise Ann Allen

ROME (CRUX) — One of the Catholic Church’s most towering figures, Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was acquitted of child sexual abuse and was once a top aide in Pope Francis’ financial reform efforts, died late Tuesday in Rome due to a complication after a routine surgery, sources say. He was 81.

Sources close to Cardinal Pell told Crux that he suffered complications following a minor procedure at Salvator Mundi hospital in Rome and passed away shortly before 9 p.m. local time.

According to the source, Cardinal Pell will be flown back to Australia following his Vatican funeral, and he will be buried in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, where he served as archbishop for 13 years before moving to the Vatican.

In addition to being one of the Catholic Church’s tallest prelates, Cardinal Pell was also one of the most influential.

Long seen as a leader of the conservative bloc in Australian Catholicism, who for years played a leading role in setting the tone of the Catholic Church in the oceanic nation, Cardinal Pell was also a prominent figure in Pope Francis’ initial reform efforts.

Shortly after his election in 2013, Pope Francis established a Council of Cardinals advising him on matters of church governance and reform, naming Cardinal Pell as one of the council’s first members and appointing him head of the then-newly established Secretariat for the Economy.

The Vatican’s third most powerful prelate at the time, Cardinal Pell was tasked with reforming the Vatican’s murky finances, which involved putting together balance sheets, conducting audits, and attempting to loosen the powerful Secretariat of State’s grasp on a significant portion of the Holy See’s assets.

Due to Cardinal Pell’s vigorous reform efforts, a tug-of-war of sorts broke out between Pell and the Secretariat of State. Cardinal Pell was seen as the eventual loser when Pope Francis announced legislation cementing the Secretariat of State’s control over the purse strings.

However, that decision was later reversed by Pope Francis, who restricted the Secretariat of State’s transactional authority after a scandal involving a shady London real estate deal lost the Vatican millions.

Cardinal Pell stepped down from his role in the Secretariat for the Economy in 2017 when Australian authorities charged him with sexually abusing two minor boys while Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996.

Despite Cardinal Pell’s repeated pleas of innocence, he was unanimously convicted in a second trial, after the first ended in a hung jury, and was sentenced to six years behind bars. He spent over 400 days in prison in isolation before he was eventually acquitted in April 2020 by Australia’s High Court.

Cardinal Pell then published a three-volume set of prison diaries, offering readers a glimpse of his daily life and spiritual reflections during his time in prison.

After his acquittal, he accused his main rival in the Secretariat of State, Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu — who was serving as sostituto at the time, a position akin to a chief of staff, and who is now among 10 defendants standing trial for financial crimes in relation to the London deal — of orchestrating the allegations against him in 2017 in a bid to oust him over his attempted reform. Becciu has denied the allegations.

Born in Ballarat in June 1941, he entered the seminary in Werribee in 1960 and was ordained a priest in 1966.

Cardinal Pell quickly became a rising star in the Australian church and went on to have a prominent ecclesial career, being appointed as auxiliary bishop for Melbourne in 1987 and archbishop in 1996. He was also appointed as a member of several Vatican departments.

He was appointed archbishop of Sydney in 2001, was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003, and participated in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, who passed away on Dec. 31 at the age of 95. Cardinal Pell attended Benedict’s funeral on Jan. 5.

Given his longstanding influence in Australian Catholicism, the explosive public controversy over his abuse conviction and acquittal, and his role in Vatican reform, among many other things, Cardinal Pell is easily one of Catholicism’s modern giants who left behind a complex legacy that won’t easily be forgotten.