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SSuddenly it seems like George Pell is everywhere. Released from a Melbourne jail in April after the high court unanimously overturned his conviction for child sexual abuse, the cardinal joined the rest of the country in home isolation when the first wave of Covid-19 hit.
But in July, the man who was once No. 3 in the Vatican hierarchy was dining with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott at a Sydney club. And in late September, he returned to Rome, three years after leaving his job as the Vatican’s finance chief to answer the charges in Melbourne.
On October 12, Pell had a friendly half-hour meeting with Pope Francis, and this past weekend he celebrated Mass on the 10th anniversary of the canonization of Australia’s first saint, Mary McKillop. Abbott was on the front bench.
Nearby was a former speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, whose wife is an ambassador to the Holy See. The presence of the Gingrich couple is significant because they represent Catholics in the United States who have long considered Pell a champion of their orthodox style and theology.
Don’t be surprised by more photographs from Rome of Pell presiding over Mass, perhaps meeting old Vatican colleagues, basically doing what one might expect of a cardinal in semi-retirement.
But Pell has returned to a Rome in the grip of an extraordinary conspiracy theory. A former Vatican official and Pell adversary, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, allegedly funneled money (about $ 1.1 million) to sources in Australia in an attempt to secure Pell’s conviction.
Becciu denies the accusation, but the Australian federal police are reviewing the information and have referred some matters to the Victoria anti-corruption body. Victoria police said Friday that without any evidence of “suspicious activity” they will not investigate further. Italian police have already arrested a Becciu associate in connection with other unrelated money transfers.
The pope removed Becciu from his job at the head of the department that makes saints, accusing him of “misappropriation” when he was previously a senior official in the Vatican Secretariat of State.
It was in that job that Becciu first clashed with Pell, who was tasked with sweeping reform of the notoriously lax finances of the Holy See. He was reportedly about to audit the Secretary of State when the abuse charges were filed.
So, has Pell returned to Rome to finish the job and defeat the man who allegedly conspired to have him falsely convicted?
Shortly after his release, Pell said he would return to Rome. He has a floor to pack. Neither he nor his colleagues from the Vatican expected a three-year absence.
But a lot of threads are coming together, even if they don’t fit together naturally. Pell returns, Becciu is fired, and Becciu’s former Vatican foreign service associate, Adolfo Tito Yllana, is called back to Rome from his post as papal envoy in Australia.
It’s no exaggeration to imagine that at their meeting, Pope Francis could have asked Pell if there was anything else he could tell him about Becciu’s time and spending at the Secretary of State.
Pell’s job running the finance department was formally filled last year and a Spanish Jesuit, Juan Antonio Guerrero, now sits in his old office. But several members of Pell’s former staff remain in their place.
It is possible, church sources say, that Francis could appoint Pell for a short-term “benefit”, a job, perhaps as a cardinal-priest in one of the churches directly under the control of the Pope, who is also bishop of Rome. from where I could suggest certain lines of investigation to Guerrero.
The relationship between the Pope and the cardinal is one of the most fascinating, perhaps paradoxical, in Rome.
Francis’s decision to meet with Pell and publish the photographs surprised few. It is understood that the Pope believed in Pell’s innocence and the Vatican’s official line was that he had the right to exhaust all avenues of appeal in the Australian legal system.
As for the royal commission’s report on institutional sexual abuse, which found that Pell was aware of allegations of sexual abuse by three priests in the 1970s and 1980s and did not act, the Vatican’s position is, to say the least , opaque.
The Vatican welcomed the recommendations of the royal commission, and the reformers believe it helps their cause. But on Pell’s specific findings, church sources say the Vatican believes they are part of Pell’s “scattering” approach, one piece with a conviction overturned. That is why it seems that the Pope did not hesitate to meet the cardinal.
But it’s also worth remembering that Francis and Pell have very different views of the Catholic Church and that puts limits on their alliance. Pell supports the church’s teaching of social justice – he was a friend of both Labor and liberal politicians – but also believes in “dialogue with power.” He has a loyal following among American conservatives, through widely read websites such as LifeSite News and the Catholic Register.
Francis believes in “a poor church for the poor” and each of his encyclicals since 2013 has heightened his concern about global poverty and climate change.
Pell, as part of the Anglo-Celtic tradition, believes that the law of the church is the law of the church, and it is not for tinkering. In 2016, after four conservative cardinals presented a so-called “dubia,” demanding that Francis clarify what they believed was his shaky teaching on divorced people who commune, Pell, a member of the Pope’s cabinet, effectively backed critics of his boss. His questions, he said, were “significant” and “how can you disagree with a question”?
When Francis appointed Pell as chief of finance, he is said to have given him what a church source called “deep but specific authority” to use his reputed financial management skills to clean up alleged corruption in the Vatican. It was a job of high level and prestige, but it had nothing to do with the doctrine, the liturgy, the pastoral mission or the international relations of the world Catholic Church.
And it is to that very specific task that Pell could be returning, albeit without the official title or office.
Or the cardinal could simply be traveling in Rome, possibly until next June, when he turns 80. He could be packing his extensive library, enjoying the cafes, restaurants and the company of friends who never doubted him, in a city where he felt loved and feared at the same time.
