Cardinal George Pell Faced Down a Hostile World

The Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2023

His faith, even during wrongful detention, was the crown of an inspiring Catholic life.

Australia’s Cardinal George Pell, who died Tuesday at 81, was the most influential Catholic churchman in the English-speaking world. Pell devoted his considerable talents and prodigious energies to proclaiming the Gospel, refusing to be cowed by a culture turning against its Christian heritage. Persecuted in his native Australia, he suffered a wrongful sexual-abuse conviction but emerged with his reputation intact and his credibility enhanced.

Pell was born in 1941 in Ballarat, about 60 miles west of Melbourne. An outsize presence from his early days, he was a towering physical force who excelled at Australian rules football and in the classroom. He started his seminary studies at home before completing them in Rome and earning a doctorate at Oxford. As he returned to Australia, he was marked by the Vatican for leadership, the only man ever to serve as archbishop of both Melbourne (1996-2001) and Sydney (2001-14).

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