Cardinal Pell, 79, was cleared of sex abuse charges in his native Australia in April. His book “Prison Journal,” published this month, recounts his 13 months in solitary confinement in tiny cells following one of the most divisive trials in the country’s history.
In a 90-minute interview with Reuters in his Rome apartment across the street from a Vatican gate, Cardinal Pell discussed his darkest moments, how his faith kept him from falling into despair, the harm the worldwide sexual abuse scandal had done to the Church and the current state of affairs in the Vatican. “Look, it was bad, it wasn’t like a holiday, but I don’t want to exaggerate how difficult that was. But there were many dark moments,” he said, wearing a black clergyman suit with a silver cross around his neck.
Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Pell, the former archbishop of Sydney, in 2014 to head the newly-created Secretariat for the Economy and mandated him with cleaning up the Vatican’s murky finances.
Cardinal Pell ran into resistance from some Vatican officials, particularly Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, then deputy secretary of state who wanted Vatican departments to continue controlling their own funds.
Cardinal Becciu forced out external auditors brought in by Cardinal Pell as well as the Vatican’s first auditor general.
In September, Pope Francis fired Cardinal Becciu, accusing him of nepotism and embezzlement. Cardinal Becciu, who also has been caught up in a scandal involving the Vatican’s purchase of a luxury property in London, denies all wrongdoing. “I think we are much, much better placed than we were,” Cardinal Pell said of the state of reform of Vatican finances, including new accounting and controls.
“The great challenge that lies before the Vatican is that it’s slowly going broke. Now that’s a bit of an exaggeration (but) it’s slowly happening,” he said, adding that he was basing his comments on public information.