Fisher has been eager to point out there are as many differences, as similarities, between himself and Pell. He told ABC Radio's Noel Debien: "I'm a generation younger. I'm from multicultural Australia. My ancestors come from four different continents." Nor, he said, was he the "larger-than-life figure" that Pell was, physically and figuratively.

On the crucial question of how he handles the sexual abuse crisis, Fisher has clearly learned from an incident during World Youth Day in 2008, when he said some people were "dwelling crankily ... on old wounds".  It's fair to observe that he now speaks with a profound sense of disgust. "We accept that this is a spiritual and moral problem in our church and not just some bad guys in the old days," he told ABC. He even speaks of the church being "purified by this experience by the humiliation".

On a practical level, this means replacing the church's tragically flawed procedures for dealing with abuse victims ... and laying some real money on the line.

Fisher is a noted scholar, with a doctorate in bioethics from Oxford University, but what will count even more under Pope Francis is strong pastoral conviction. As disappointed liberals are noticing, this does not mean overturning all church doctrine but it does mean less judgment and more inclusion. After all, Francis's most famous impromptu words to date are, "Who am I to judge", when asked about gay Christians seeking to know God.

Perhaps the most complex challenge that Francis offers to the "John Paul II generation" of priests and bishops, such as Fisher, is on the economic order. The trend – most pronounced in the United States but present across an entire cohort – is towards conservatism on both moral and political issues.

Francis, perhaps more than another pope since Leo XIII in 1891, has emphasised the church's critique of an unjust economic order.  He even called it "madness".

This may be where Anthony Fisher, the son of western Sydney who practised corporate law, albeit briefly, comes into his own.