George Pell: Pope Francis slammed over Vatican posting

One of Italy’s news magazines has slammed the Pope for elevating George Pell to the church’s third-highest position.

One of Italy’s biggest selling news magazines has slammed the Pope for elevating George Pell to the Catholic Church’s third-highest position despite controversy about his handling of sex abuse within the Australian clergy.

Columnist Emiliano Fittipaldi wrote in the magazine L’Espresso that Cardinal Pell should never have been parachuted to the role of a senior adviser to the Pope in 2014, given his controversial leadership of the church in Australia.

Fittipaldi, who beat criminal charges in 2015 after publishing a book based on leaked documents from the Vatican, said Thursday’s charges against Cardinal Pell would be a “watershed” moment for the Pope.

“Faced with complaints of Australian victims (whom he never wanted to meet), and those (few) journalists, (Francis) has always defended Pell ... renewing his ­duties and his power year after year. The Italian press was in ­almost total silence,” he wrote, “until today, when allegations of sexual abuse (to be proven, it must be said and repeated) have forced a sudden change of direction.

“With the admission, obviously indirect, that it was another wrong key appointment of (Francis’s) pontificate.”

Cardinal Pell’s historical sexual assault charges was big news in Italy, receiving coverage in major newspaper and television outlets. He was widely acknowledged as the most senior member of the Catholic Church to be charged with sex offences.

Newspaper La Repubblica ­described Cardinal Pell as a “controversial kangaroo” and said Australia was a “paradise” for ­deviant priests. Italy’s biggest-selling daily, Corriere della Sera, said that the charges against Cardinal Pell were expected. The paper’s political columnist and Vatican expert, Massimo Franco, wrote that ­Cardinal Pell was effectively ­removed from his role despite the official language from the Vatican saying it allowed him leave.

Franco said Vatican positions would probably be reorganised over the European summer.

He was critical of the way Cardinal Pell went about his position as the head of the Secretariat for the Economy of Vatican City, a ­position created for him in 2014 by the Pope. “The way in which Pell has handled (the role) was considered costly and ineffective,” he wrote in an opinion piece. “Pell has wanted to use a heavy hand to impose the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon legal system on a world (of which) he knew little and that he soon ­refused.”

Franco added that it would be damaging for the church if Cardinal Pell were to be found guilty.

“This confirms the weakness of this institution in the face of a history of harassment addressed ­always late, and never with a preventive strategy,” he said.

“The result is that the church continues to be forced to defend ­itself and to pursue the accusations, without ever being able to impose a convincing analysis of the phenomenon, of its responsibilities and possible exploitation.”