If defrocked, Cardinal Pell faces loss of house, privileges

Cardinal George Pell will lose his title, his house in the Vatican, his car and driver if he is defrocked in the wake of his jailing for child sexual abuse.

Cardinal George Pell will lose his title, his house in the Vatican, his car and driver if he is defrocked in the wake of his jailing for child sexual abuse.

Pell, 77, is likely to be laicised, or “defrocked’’ by Pope Francis as a result of his conviction and sentence.

He was removed last year from the Pope’s C-9 Council of Cardinals, and his contract as Treasurer of the Vatican was allowed to quietly expire last month, meaning he has already lost his jobs as a close adviser to the Pope, and as the third-highest official in the Vatican.

While he has been technically suspended from his duties in the Vatican, he will be unable to return to work in Rome unless he succeeds in overturning his convictions on appeal.

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Survivors of church abuse hold placards outside the County Court to hear the sentencing of Cardinal George Pell. Picture: AFP

Even then, the church is unlikely to welcome him back, given the worldwide scandal of sexual abuse which Pope Francis is struggling to manage. In the event of a successful appeal, he is likely to be quietly pensioned off on the basis of age or ill health.

If he is to be defrocked he will lose the church apartment in the Vatican where he lived for years with his elderly sister until returning to Australia in 2017 to face the courts. The apartment in the Piazza della Citta Leonina is an extraordinary piece of real estate, sitting inside the Vatican walls metres from St Peter’s Basilica, and houses a number of senior international church officials and priests.

Pope Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pope in 600 years to abdicate the Papacy, was rumoured to have lived in the same apartment building for a period, and still lives close to St Peter’s Basilica.

Cardinal George Pell has been sentenced to six years’ jail. Picture: Getty

Pell also had a car and driver available to him, another perk that will be lost.

He will also lose his church titles, and have to refer to himself as “Mr Pell.’’

Canon Law, which is the procedure followed to defrock priests, does allow for the church to continue paying him a pension, but does not legally require the church to continue to provide for him financially.

However, some defrocked priests have been able to negotiate some support from the church in the past, such as ongoing health care.

Pope Francis will have the final say on whether Pell should be defrocked. If he was to face the sanction, he would be only the second cardinal ever to be undergo laicisation, following the precedent-setting defrocking last month of 88-year-old Theodore E. McCarrick, a former cardinal and Archbishop of Washington who sexually abused children and adults.

He would not be allowed to celebrate the sacrament, present himself as a priest or wear his clerical robes. He would also be banned from ordaining other priests, or working in a seminary.