Nemesis gone, George Pell flies back to Vatican

Cardinal George Pell flew out of Sydney to return to the Vatican on Tuesday night, days after his nemesis within the Catholic Church suddenly resigned.

George Pell at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Sydney’s Homebush before flying to Rome on Tuesday night. Picture: Steven Saphore

Cardinal George Pell flew out of Sydney to return to the Vatican on Tuesday night, days after his nemesis within the Catholic Church, Italian Angelo Becciu, suddenly resigned and renounced his rights as a cardinal.

Cardinal Becciu, 72, was in charge of the Congregation for Saints, the second-highest official in charge of the Secretariat of State until June 18.

In that role, he was the arch opponent of Cardinal Pell’s efforts to ­reform and modernise the Vatican’s corrupt, opaque finances.

On hearing of Cardinal Becciu’s resignation, Cardinal Pell told The Weekend Australian on Saturday: “The Holy Father was elected to clean up Vatican finances. He plays a long game and is to be congratulated on recent developments. I hope the clean-ups of the Augean stables continue, both in the Vatican and in Victoria.’’

At a press conference in Rome on Friday, Cardinal Becciu told journalists Pope Francis “told me that he no longer has trust in me because a report came from the magistrates that I allegedly committed acts of embezzlement’’.

Cardinal Becciu protested his innocence. Crux magazine in Rome reported that he said: “In our meeting, the Holy Father told me that I favoured my brothers and their companies with money from the Secretariat of State.’’

In 2016, Cardinal Becciu suspended an audit of Vatican finances by PricewaterhouseCoopers. In 2017, he was instrumental in sacking Vatican auditor Libero Milone, a former chairman and chief executive of Deloitte in Italy.

He admitted that a window and door company owned by one of his brothers had received money from Vatican embassies but insisted the business was legitimate. “I gave money to my brother only because I bought fixtures from his company for the nunciat­ures (Vatican embassies) in Egypt and Cuba,” he said. “I don’t see any crimes.”

Meanwhile, the trial of 11 media organisations and 19 journ­alists over alleged contempt for reporting Cardinal Pell’s conviction was set down to proceed in November, with the Supreme Court of Victoria presiding judge comparing it to a criminal trial.

Cardinal Pell, once the world’s third-highest-ranking Catholic, was found guilty by a jury in December­ 2018 of sexually abusing two choirboys in the 1990s. He was subsequently acquitted by a unanimous High Court bench and released from prison in April.

Media reporting after the conviction did not name the cardinal or the offences. The media organisations and individuals have been charged with allegedly breaching a suppression order over the case while a second jury trial was pending. The second trial was abandoned.

Documents about the public­ation of articles in the Herald Sun, The Age, The Daily Telegraph and others will need to be handed over to the prosecution by October 20. Media lawyer Matt Collins QC also asked for “distinct” briefs of evidence against each of the accused­ parties to be served, instead­ of one single document.

Judge John Dixon agreed.

Additional reporting: NCA NewsWire