This definitive biography traces Cardinal George Pell’s life from his childhood in Australia to his role as the Vatican treasurer; through his trials, unjust imprisonment, and exoneration to his untimely passing away on January 10, 2023.
Richly endowed with intellectual and athletic talent, strong faith in Christ, a solid family, and a great capacity for friendship, the young Pell turned down a professional Australian Rules football contract and instead entered the seminary in 1960. After his ordination to the priesthood at Saint Peter’s Basilica in 1966 and completing a doctorate in Church history at Oxford, he served as a country curate, a Catholic university leader, a seminary rector, the archbishop of Melbourne, and the archbishop of Sydney. Made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003, he was chosen by Pope Francis as the prefect for the new Secretariat for the Economy in 2014.
His legacy includes rebuilding Church precincts in Melbourne and Sydney, revitalizing seminary formation, founding Catholic universities, leading Australia’s main Catholic foreign aid agency, and heading World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney. From a weekly column in Australia’s largest-circulation Sunday newspaper to bestselling books and scholarly lectures, he has left a trove of writings. This book includes snippets of some of the best of them and captures his ideas, wit, and personality.
Like many bishops of his generation, Pell found dealing with corruption in the Church a herculean challenge. After being falsely accused of indifference to clerical sex abuse and of committing it himself, he suffered 404 days in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit. In his role as Vatican treasurer, his efforts to reform the Church’s finances met with resistance from an entrenched “old guard’’. Through it all, he retained his dignity and integrity as a faithful successor to the apostles.