“...From outside Australia, it’s probably quite difficult to have any knowledge of how hated George Pell was by a lot of progressives. I think it is probably fair to say, he was their big bogeyman from the mid 1990s onwards - when he first came to real public prominence, it was as Archbishop of Melbourne, and at that time, the big thing that upset the left was that he was very public in refusing to condone homosexuality. Left wing activists used to attend his Masses wearing rainbow sashes and he would not give them Communion - he blessed them but he said that he could not give them Communion in such a situation. This caused massive, massive outrage.
This was at about the same time, that the genuine scandal about child sex abuse by Catholic clergy was first gaining prominence here, and because he was already a public figure of hate by then, he became the target of a lot of hate about that - what the people expressing that hatred always failed to understand was part of the reason the scandals emerged at that time, was because George Pell stopped the coverups that had been routine in Melbourne, before he became Archbishop - his predecessor, Archbishop Sir Frank Little, had covered up a great deal, in common with many other senior clergy. Viewed objectively, Pell was one of the first senior Catholic clerics to move away from that approach - but that isn’t the popular narrative....—— FR’s Naturalman1975
I would venture to say Pell was equally hated in Rome by the papal crooks whom he was about to expose.
Yes, I stand by all of that.
He made himself incredibly unpopular with the progressive left in Australia, well before he became involved in things like Vatican finance.
Pope Francis seems to have respected him - but he wasn’t liked generally by the left wing of the Church either.