Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ former finance minister, will soon return to the Vatican during an extraordinary economic scandal for the first time since he was cleared of child abuse allegations in Australia five months ago, a church agency said on September 28.
Pell will fly back to Rome on Sept. 29, CathNews, an information agency of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said, citing “sources close to” Pell.
Pell’s return follows Francis firing one of the cardinal’s most powerful opponents, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, over a financial scandal.
Pell was regarded as the third highest-ranking Vatican official and was attempting to wrestle the Holy See’s opaque finances into order when he returned to his native Australia in 2017 to clear himself of decades-old allegations of child sex abuse. Becciu said he was fired after Francis told him that documents from the Italian financial police alleged the 72-year-old cardinal had embezzled 100,000 euros ($116,200). Becciu, the former No. 2 in the Vatican’s secretariat of state, denied wrongdoing.