VATICAN CITY
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 10, 2016
One could perhaps understand if Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was tapped by Pope Francis in 2014 as his point man for financial reform in the Vatican, was content these days to just sort of phone it in.
Pell turns 75 in June, the retirement age for Catholic bishops, and although cardinals often serve well beyond that threshold, the clock is ticking. His efforts to promote accountability have drawn resistance from the Vatican’s Italian old guard, and he’s facing an inquest from a Royal Commission in Australia about his handling of sex abuse cases decades ago.
Yet despite it all, Pell shows no signs of surrender.
Recently, the Vatican published a collection of papers presented to new Catholic bishops from around the world taking part in a Rome training course known informally as “baby bishops school.”
While several presentations were of dubious real-world value, not so with Pell’s. He was his usual no-nonsense self, wryly warning new bishops that “dishonesty is not unknown” in how Church personnel handle money.
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