AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESS LIVINGSTONE
THE AUSTRALIAN
FEBRUARY 22, 2016

Plenty of people want George Pell to come unstuck. Chief among them are the Vatican old guard, the mafia and heavies whose money laundering, tax evasion and possibly worse will come to an abrupt halt if crucial reforms instigated by the cardinal, such as the professional auditing of all Vatican agencies, including the Vatican Bank, come into force in coming months.

It’s needed. The cardinal, 74, and his team have uncovered more than €1 billion ($1.5bn) in Vatican funds unaccounted for, busted a multi-million-euro rort centred on a children’s hospital funded by a Catholic charity and the Italian government and exposed millions in unexplained transactions. Crunch time is coming, and some in prominent Vatican positions want a return to the “old ways’’. As in Australia, where he injected energy into the church in Melbourne and Sydney, he…