Why a place in heaven is well beyond my reach

The champagne corks are popping in the Vatican. Cardinal George Pell has been found not guilty by Australia’s highest court.

Pell’s journey through the Australian legal system has been as big a nightmare for the church as it has for the man himself. Pell is uncommonly unpopular for a prince of the church.

The dwindling numbers of churchgoers are split between fans and many detractors. The rank and file may want reform but Pell and his ilk are determined they shall not have it.

On this occasion the full bench of the High Court has unanimously cleared Pell so he walks out a free man and his legal nightmare has come to an end.

Legal friends have debated the case against Pell for the last couple of years.

I have never seen a case in which so many Australian seemed to have a stake in the outcome. Such is the dislike for Pell that Tony Abbott, Pell’s long-time friend, was criticised for daring to visit him in prison.

For too many of us the fundamental guarantee of the legal ­system, innocent until proven guilty, was suspended or cast aside for Pell.

He was seen as arrogant and ­arrogances do not play out well in the lounge rooms. As more and more Catholics challenge their own belief and commitment, Pell was the wrong man at the wrong job at the wrong time. A majority of Australian Catholics wanted him to be guilty. He divided the church like no other. When the church required a unifying force, he provided the opposite. When so few young men show interest in filling up the seminaries, a better example of the priesthood should have been presented.

The lines of the Catechism were drilled into me by nuns, but adherence was beyond me. I ­always fancied that on my death bed I could make a sign of the cross and all my appalling lapses would be forgiven. The trouble with that comfort is the prospect of dying during my sleep one night.

One of the church’s little tests for kids was that if you attend Mass and communion on the first Friday of the month for nine consecutive months, you were guaranteed your place in heaven. You’ve got to love a church that will allow you to reserve your spot as a child and then rob, steal, cheat and philander your way through life without having to concern yourself with the prospect of eternal hell fire.

Not even the certainty of ­heaven could get me to forsake my warm bed on a cold winter’s morning. My place in heaven has never looked less certain.