George Pell: Pope Francis’s extraordinary backing of No 3

The Pope is backing George Pell, one of his closest ­advisers, as his papacy faces its biggest crisis.

Cardinal George Pell meets with Pope Francis in 2013.

The Pope has closed ranks behind­ George Pell, one of his closest ­advisers, as his papacy faces its biggest crisis.

The pontiff has made both his and the church’s position clear in regards to supporting Cardinal Pell, who was promoted to the Vatican­ three years ago to reform its multi-billion-dollar real estate and financial portfolio.

Francis offered an extra­ordinary character pitch yesterday for his No 3 man, reinforcing ­Cardinal Pell’s outspoken abhorrence of child abuse and that his work had included introducing systems in Australia to protect ­minors and provide assistance to victims of abuse.

In a statement read by his media officer, Greg Burke, the Pope said: “It is important to recal­l Cardinal Pell has openly and repeatedly condemned as immoral­ and intolerable the acts of abuse against minors.

“He has co-operated in the past with Australian authorities, for ­example in his deposition before the royal commission, supported the pontifical commission for the protection of minors and, finally, as a diocesan bishop in Australia, has introduced systems and proced­ures both for the protection of minors and to provide assistance to victims of abuse.’’

Behind the Vatican walls, the Pope’s critics were “jumping up and down in glee’’, according to one long-time journalist observer.

The Pell case will now thrust sex abuse directly into the heart of the Pope’s leadership, and he will be under pressure to enact further church reform in this area beyond previous achingly slow changes.

Victims’ groups have long called for the church hierarchy to have an open, transparent and cohesive­ system in dealing with sex-abuse allegations.

The church’s recent apologies have not matched church law, where individual bishops around the globe still have overarching control in dealing with sexual abuse complaints.

Traditionally, the Vatican has been accused of putting the rights of its priests, and even actively protecting them, ahead of the rights of victims, but the Pope has made several recent pronouncements that at the very least acknowledge the PR nightmare that has enveloped the church for decades.

Just last month, the Pope said the Vatican was dealing with a backlog of 2000 claims of sex abuse. Three days after last Christmas, he sent a letter to all Catholic bishops denouncing child sexual abuse as a “sin that shames us’’ and which must be rooted out.

He told bishops there must be zero tolerance: “I would like thus to renew our complete commitment to ensuring these atrocities will no longer take place in our midst. The church recognises the sins of some of her members, the ­sufferings, the experiences and the pain of minors … abused sexually by priests.

“It is a sin that shames us.’’

Two years ago, he ordered­ the trial and defrocking of a Polish archbishop accused of paying for sex with underage child­ren in the Dominican Republic.

Yet the Vatican has had to counter suspicions of cover-ups and it appears the long-established system of moving around problem priests continued even at the highest levels until recently.

Cardinal Hans Hermanm Groer resigned as archbishop of Vienna in 1995 after students claimed he molested them, but he was allowed to remain a cardinal.

Bernard Francis Law, the cardinal and archbishop of Boston from 1984 to 2002, resigned when it emerged he had been covering up sexual abuse committed by priests under his charge. Pope John Paul II accept­ed his resignation, but then reassigned him to an administrative post in the Roman Curia.