Abuse Royal Commission: Pope Francis could ask Cardinal George Pell to retire

ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Nick Miller
Europe Correspondent

Rome: The Pope may accept Cardinal George Pell’s enforced resignation in June, if evidence to Australia’s Royal Commission links him to the relocation of priests suspected of paedophilia, ‘Vaticanista’ journalists believe.

Pope Francis and Cardinal Pell met face to face at the Vatican on Monday, just hours after the Australian cleric’s first session giving evidence by video link to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Vatican gave no details of the meeting, but Corriere della Serra reported it was one of a regular series of ‘di cartelli’ briefings the Pope gets from department heads.

Cardinal Pell is the Vatican’s prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy – he described himself to the Commission as the ‘treasurer’ of the Vatican, and is widely called the third most powerful man in the Holy See.

Corriere said it was “difficult to imagine” that the interview would not have touched on the cardinal’s video evidence to the Commission which took place late Sunday night, Rome time.

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