The "Final Insult"

Cardinal George Pell with Pope Francis when he received him in audience in October 2020, only six months after his acquittal.

In Australia, previously unknown information, "dark allegations", according to Daily Mail Australia, surrounding the sudden death of Cardinal George Pell is causing a stir. The Australian cardinal died unexpectedly in Rome on January 10, 2023, just days after attending the funeral of Benedict XVI. He had undergone routine hip surgery at the Salvator Mundi hospital in Rome, during which he suffered cardiac arrest.

Pell was first Archbishop of Melbourne, then of Sydney and finally Prefect of the newly established Vatican Secretariat for the Economy. In 2003, Pope John Paul II created him a cardinal. Under Pope Francis, he was called to Rome, but he was treated badly there. When th

e cardinal, as Prefect for the Economy, wanted to bring order to the Holy See's finances, which were divided among countless institutions, he encountered some bitter resistance. Pope Francis abandoned him because of pressure from those who did not want to reveal their cards. 

The indescribable ordeal

Then baseless accusations of sexual abuse surfaced in Australia. An indescribable ordeal began for Pell. He was dragged to court in 2017, convicted and went to prison even though he didn't have to. He was eventually acquitted by the Supreme Court. He published a diary of spiritually extraordinarily valuable value about his time in prison. To this day, he is the first cardinal to be imprisoned in a constitutional state. 

To this day, however, there is a persistent rumour that the accusations which brought Pell to court in Australia were "organised" by the Vatican in order to get rid of the troublesome Australian in a particularly despicable way - and they succeeded. Although Francis sent solidarity greetings had messages of encouragement delivered to him, and criticized the trial and conviction as a "coup", the head of the Church had no comparable gestures for Pell, his cardinal. In fact, none at all. Even when Pell was acquitted, Francis made him wait outside the door for months before he agreed to receive him. Did the Pope have a guilty conscience? Francis also did not entrust the then still sprightly cardinal with any more office.

This behavior strengthened those who suspect the source of perhaps the most vile attack against a cardinal in recent history came from the Vatican. Francis signaled that the Australian was no longer wanted, and there was a reason for this: Cardinal Pell was one of the critics of the current pontificate. Even from prison, he had expressed clear criticism of the then upcoming Amazon Synod after a razor-sharp analysis. And for Francis, the question "For me or against me?" plays a central role.

“His nose was broken”

Let’s hear what Brett Lackey reported yesterday in the Daily Mail Australia:

"Dark claims about George Pell's body emerge after Australia's highest-ranking Catholic dies of cardiac arrest. Cardinal George Pell's body is said to have had a broken nose and was not properly bandaged when he was returned to Australia after his death in Rome."

 

And further:

"His funeral in St. Peter's Basilica four days later reportedly caused great astonishment among Vatican insiders because there was no traditional open coffin."

The Daily recalls that the measures he took as Prefect of the Economy "had brought him considerable backlash from figures within the Vatican, some of whom have since been accused of financial crimes such as fraud, conspiracy and embezzlement".

His task of bringing transparency to opaque financial structures of some long-unmonitored Vatican departments "was also complicated by the fact that Pell was charged by Victoria state police in 2017 on allegations of long-standing child abuse, which led to him spending 13 months in an Australian prison before he was acquitted of all charges on appeal."

His clothes “thrown” into the coffin

The Australian , another daily newspaper on the fifth continent, wrote at the same time that "rumours have been circulating for months at the Holy See that his body was left in disarray after the autopsy", that his clothes were "thrown" into the coffin and that his shoes were missing. The Australian also confirmed citing Pell's brother, that when the body arrived in Australia the family discovered that the cardinal's nose was broken. Andrew Bolt, a columnist for the Herald Sun, Australia's largest daily newspaper, described this in a commentary for SkyNews as a "final insult" to the cardinal that had been inflicted on him in Rome.

"Incompetence" is not ruled out as a cause. At the same time, however, Australian media are pointing to the cardinal's closest associates, who see the rough treatment of the body as "a sign that some in the Vatican have not forgiven Pell for pursuing corruption."

Andrew Bolt puts it this way:

"Pell once told me that he didn't feel safe in the Vatican when he was pursuing criminals. What they did with his body makes me think he was right." 

And further:

"Pell himself said in 2021 that he was surprised at the amount of resistance he encountered within the church when it came to modernising its finances. 'I underestimated the ingenuity and tenacity of those opposed to reform,' Pell said in September 2021."

 

Australia's media point out, without making a direct connection, that on December 16, 2023, ten people, including a cardinal, Vatican employees and external consultants, were found guilty of financial crimes. The so-called "trial of the century" concerned real estate deals in London in which the Holy See suffered losses of 350 million euros.

Cardinal Pell, a strong personality, was not discouraged by the less than fatherly treatment by Pope Francis, but spoke out repeatedly and clearly even after his return to Rome. Since he was convinced that a conclave would soon take place, he tried to establish contacts among the new cardinals and to make them known to each other, since Francis has not convened a consistory for ten years. In the spring of 2022, Pell asked Francis to reprimand Cardinal Hollerich, the Archbishop of Luxembourg, COMECE President and General Relator of the Synodality Synod, and Bishop Bätzing, President of the German Bishops' Conference. At his death, he left behind a spiritual legacy that is a scathing criticism of Francis' pontificate.

When considering these reports, it is important to remember that Australia's media have a lot to make up for with Cardinal George Pell and that journalists are always tempted to jump on the sleazy Dan Brown bandwagon. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Cardinal George Pell was treated badly.

Andrew Bolt's comment on SkyNews

Note: Pell's history of covering for sex predators and other accusations against him are well known.  Is the traditional blogosphere so desperate for champions that they embrace men like him?  It's so discouraging.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : VaticanMedia (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG