PHILIP PULLELLA
REUTERS
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 12, 2020
Email to friendShare on twitterShare on facebookShare on linkedinShare on whatsapp
Pope Francis, right, sits at a table with Cardinal George Pell on the occasion of their private meeting at the Vatican, Monday, Oct. 12, 2020.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pope Francis met on Monday with Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s former economy minister who has returned to Rome after the firing of an Italian cardinal whom Pell had accused of obstructing financial reform.
Pell was cleared earlier this year of sexual abuse charges in Australia after spending 13 months in prison, and it remains unclear whether he will take up another role in the Vatican.
The Vatican announced the meeting between Pell and Pope Francis in a statement on the pope’s daily private audiences, but gave no details. “It went very well,” Pell told reporters in front of his residence just outside the Vatican walls.
Pell returned to Rome on Sept. 30, just days after the pope fired Pell’s nemesis, Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who was accused of embezzlement and nepotism. Becciu has denied all wrongdoing.
While Becciu was number two in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and Pell was economy minister, the two had a very stormy relationship.
Becciu told reporters the day after he was sacked about a meeting between Pell, the pope and Becciu where Pell told Becciu, “You are dishonest”, and Becciu replied: “How dare you!”
After Becciu was sacked, Pell said: “The Holy Father was elected to clean up Vatican finances. He plays a long game and is to be thanked and congratulated on recent developments.” Pell said he hoped the “cleaning of the stables” would continue.
Becciu’s lawyer has denied Italian media reports that his client sent money to Australia to help Pell’s “enemies” while he was facing the sexual abuse charges.
Through his lawyer, the Australian man who accused Pell of sexually abusing him two decades ago denied Italian reports speculating that he may have been bribed to testify.
Pell’s Australian lawyer, Robert Richter, called for an investigation “to track the money trail”. He said it should include Italian and Australian investigators.
“If one is to give any credence to what has been alleged, then it is critical that all proper money-tracing exercises be undertaken,” Richter told Reuters.
PAT SAYS
If pope Francis really believes that pell is innocent he should appoint him to a senior Vatican post
I think Francis is six pence each way man
Its all so corrupt !!!
P
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 
50 replies on “POPE FRANCIS MEETS AUSTRALIAN CARDINAL GEORGE PELL IN MIDST OF MONEY SCANDAL”
Pell is 79 so well past retirement age. It’s not logical to appoint him to a post. But then that fits your prejudice.
LikeLike
And what age was Jorge Bergoglio when he was elected pope in March 2013? Past retirement age, too.
What were you saying about prejudice?
LikeLike
The pope is far too old for that position. If other bishops have to submit their resignations at 75, why not the Bishop of Rome? And if cardinals at 80 and older are too over the hill to vote for a new pope, why is an octogenarian allowed to fill the office? What’s sauce for the goose etc.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Pell affair is an object lesson in prejudice, witch hunts, lynch mob mentality, mass hysteria, and the corruption of the press and the justice system that results. We need to learn its lessons (as in the Dreyfus affair).
LikeLike
The lessons are: avoid the catholic church.
LikeLike
3.08
Your posts rests on one fundamental assumption: that Pell’s accuser was lying.
I don’t believe that he was.
Knowing one was sexually abused and being able to prove it in a court of law are two different things. But failing to do the latter does not necessarily obviate the former.
LikeLike
The accusation against him was skewered by Justice Weinberg, who showed it to be a tissue of impossibilities. Other such accusations had huge success. Weinberg references Carl Beech, but there was a another case that sent four men to jail and that had similar details about being surprised in a sacristy guzzling altar wine.
LikeLike
Pat, you’re lucky to get a cataract op, with all the Free Staters coming to Belfast on the cataract buses organised by TDs.
LikeLike
Maybe the Italian and Australian investigation “to track the money trail” will produce more results than the Irish one into the allegations at Silverstream.
LikeLike
Produce more, convenient fiction.
LikeLike
To give any credence to what has been alleged at Silverstream, then it is critical that all proper money-tracing exercises be undertaken.
Did big +Delia and/or +Mandy-Rice Emeritus give you any assurances on this type of procedure, Bp Pat? I wonder.
LikeLike
Talking of Silverstream, are there any updates? Anything new going on at Farnborough as well?
LikeLike
I wonder what language they used during their meeting.
LikeLike
Polari, presumably.
LikeLike
Pell speaks fluent Italiano
LikeLike
@12:16 good one.
LikeLike
12:16
Showing your age, dear.
LikeLike
Pell may speak fluent Italian but Bergoglio doesn’t, according to my Rome sources.
LikeLike
6.13
His Italian is a hell of a lot better than yours I’m sure.
LikeLike
Both Pell and Francis look a bit over sturdy, and stiff in their movements. I think both could do with going on a bit of a diet. That aside, I guess it is right that Pell should have an audience with the Pope after what he has been through, and crucially given the fact that he has been declared innocent on the charges of which he was accused. There are very few clergy people who have had such a definitive judgement made by a Supreme Court about them. So, I think Pell has the right to hold his head up a bit, and to enjoy his rehabilitation. I still cannot work out the connection between Pell’s reappearance and the accusations and sacking of Becciu. Perhaps we will never know. I feel sorry for Francis having to live his life in that murky world of the Vatican with all the partisanship and jealousies and antics of prissy clerical bureaucrats. it must be wearing. From where I stand, it seems to me that clergy are either of the Power Bottom JPL variety rampaging around the place off their heads on the smell of sex and poppers, or like weedy LittlePlonker in Tooting Bec off his head with swishing maniples, lace, birettas and incense, and very strange theology. God help us !
LikeLike
Father Peter Littleton is a saint compared to you.
LikeLike
You’re welcome to Littlewanker as your saint ! If you want to buy in to his clerical, church, and theological nonsense, most of which he doesn’t understand or appreciate. Priesthood for Littletwat is all about him, swanning around, spouting ex cathedra idiocy. He needs to get out and about and see what the world is really about. It’s interesting that it was only when Peter Smith was coming to his end that he ordained Littleton. No other bishop or seminary would touch him. I think I know why !
LikeLike
12:35pm The people of Tooting Bec think he is wonderful. We are very blessed to have him in the Archdiocese alongside good faithful young priests such as Father Mark Higgins, Father John Howard, Father Giovanni Prandini, Father Paul Kind, Father Louis Kitt.
Our Lazy of Medjegorie says we should not criticise or challenge clergy but should pray for them.
LikeLike
Oh dear, 3:46, you’re putting your hope in the Bosnian Lady of Medjugorje ? What a load of nonsense that is. Worse than the others. You are certainly not blessed to have those young fogeys your mention. Half of them, I guarantee you, will be playing away in one form or other. If the trinkets of traditionalist liturgy don’t keep them happy, then they will be off to find something much more meaty to keep them occupied. Open your eyes. Remember when the Daily Mail or whatever said that a sure way of knowing if your vicar was gay was whether he had cats ? Well, there are lots of ways of knowing if our young clergy are keeping to their public professed promises. Day and night away from the presbytery for the day off ? Swapping Gammarelli for Levis of an evening ? Leaving the presbytery by the tradesmens’ entrance rather than the front door ? Holidays in Tenerife of a winter ? Well, that’s some clues just for starters. Have a check of your wonderful young priests and let me know.
LikeLike
Oh, and the wafting smell of some expensive personalised cologne wafting after him……
Look, take it from me, most, the majority of young clergy are living a lie. I don’t care what they do with their bits and where they put them or in whom they put them or where others put their bits in them. What I do worry about is the institutionalised lie that they are celibate. I don’t like being taken for a fool. I resent it. And, if they think that I am going to put up with it, well, I will make sure to expose them. They live a lie. At least people like + Pat are honest, open and transparent about who they are and what they do. Not these young fogeys….
LikeLike
I think men and women, particularly men, who believe men should be celibate are even bigger perverts.
LikeLike
Frank is so humble he only eats scraps out of the recycling bin out the back of the Casa.
LikeLike
No shortage of Francis’ haters where you are.
LikeLike
Lonely obsessive alert.
LikeLike
9.37 half way down, middle two sentences: well spotted
LikeLike
That secretary of his, Fr Joseph Hamilton, is a very colourful character…
LikeLike
… what on earth are you insinuating!?!?
LikeLike
Was big on the Night life of Rome gone far for an Irish lad seems only intrested in rich and powerful. Keep your eye in him.
LikeLike
Was big on flying North American College seminarians who were half his age over to his villa in South Africa when he was at seminary there.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Very concerning his intrest in young seminarians sounds like uncle Ted
LikeLike
8.37: I think you should stay under the duvet if these are your real concerns in a world of covid 19 trials, struggles and enormous difficulties. Man, get REAL.
LikeLike
#ColdHarteCash2020
LikeLike
Hey guys, shall we give our index fingers and thumbs a rest for today.
Rest our thumbs, hearts and eyes x
LikeLike
LikeLike
“Both the accused and the [alleged] victim were minors at the time of the [alleged] crime?” This is ridiculous! Has the Pope joined the neurotics who fret over where [alleged] celibates “put their bits”? What next? Trials for the [alleged] crime of “self-abuse”?
LikeLike
The Polish bishops are upset that Frank won’t make St Polak John Paul a Doctor of the Church….https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/13476/polish-bishop-laments-failure-to-elevate-st-john-paul-ii- What ?! Make the man who allowed Maciel to carry on with his world beating abuse a Doctor of the Church ? Make the man who developed the dysfunctional, autistic theology of the body a Doctor of the Church ? WTF. John Pole needs to be left to lie in his coffin without any other titles being given to him. On a more positive note, the usually doltish Northern bishops in Ireland have been saying something half serious about the Good Friday Agreement. I wonder do they really understand it ? Anyhow, they are at least trying, God bless them……
LikeLike
Sure why not make JPII a doctor of the Church?
Wasn’t Augustine made such, the precursor of Limbo, the purveyor of ‘just war’, and the rest?
LikeLike
A Doctress of the Church would be more appropriate.
LikeLike
💤
LikeLike
As queer as a sixpence is a new one, Bp Pat.
LikeLike
Wasn’t the now “Father” Giovanni referenced regarding all the fuss about Wonersh a couple of years ago? As is the Catholic way, I presume all those “concerns” have by now swept under the carpet. So much for Bishop Wilson being a new broom. My advice is to get out of the filthy rotten system. For my part, I’ve gone back to the SSPX – who, I should say, are friendly, kindly and welcoming – but otherwise try your local Anglicans rather than the shysters now running so-called RC parishes.
LikeLike
6.03: Fr. – seems like you’ve been there, done that, worn the (pink) jersey!! Has age got the better of you and worn your face ugly and if not a cleric, have you been scorned, not once, but 3, 4 and endless times by clerics and gay twinks? Think you are confused. See a therapist.
LikeLike
‘Priesthood for Littletwat is all about him, swanning around, spouting ex cathedra idiocy.’
Actually that is all priesthood is full stop. It’s not called the second oldest profession for nothing, however in contrast to the oldest profession these clowns perform far less frequently. The oldest profession actually means work. Clergy only get worried when the collection is down.
LikeLike
Becciu’s female partner in crime has been arrested by Interpol on a Vatican arrest warrant.
https://twitter.com/cnalive/status/1316101406156304387?s=19
LikeLike