CARDINAL GEORGE PELL

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL was born in Ballarat, on June 8th, 1941, and was educated in that city at Loreto Convent and St Patrick�s College. He studied for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College, Werribee, and Propaganda Fide College, Rome, and was ordained a Catholic priest for the Diocese of Ballarat by Cardinal Agagianian in St Peter�s Basilica, Rome, on December 16th, 1966.

On May 21st, 1987, he was ordained an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and Titular Bishop of Scala by Archbishop Sir Frank Little in St Patrick�s Cathedral.

On July 16th, 1996, Pope John Paul II announced Cardinal Pell�s appointment as seventh Metropolitan Archbishop of Melbourne. He was installed as Archbishop on August 16th, 1996 in a ceremony at the Exhibition Buildings, and received the Pallium from the Pope at St Peter�s in Rome on the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, June 29th, 1997.

On March 26th, 2001, the Holy Father appointed Cardinal Pell the eighth Metropolitan Archbishop of Sydney. He was installed as Archbishop at St Mary�s Cathedral on May 10th, 2001, and the following month received the Pallium from the Pope for the second time at St Peter�s in Rome on the feast of Sts Peter and Paul. His elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals was announced by the Pope on 28 September 2003, who created him Cardinal Priest of the Church of Saint Maria Domenica Mazzarello in Rome.

Cardinal Pell holds a Licentiate in Theology from Urban University, Rome (1967), a Masters Degree in Education from Monash University, Melbourne (1982), and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Church History from the University of Oxford (1971). He is a Fellow of the Australian College of Education, and was Visiting Scholar at Campion Hall, Oxford University, in 1979 and at St Edmund�s College, Cambridge University, In 1983. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund�s in 2003.

Before becoming Archbishop of Melbourne Cardinal Pell worked as Assistant Priest in the parishes of Swan Hill (1971-2) and Ballarat East (1973-83), as Administrator of Bungaree parish (1984) and as Parish Priest of Mentone and Bishop for the Southern Region of Melbourne (1987-96).

Cardinal Pell served as Director of the Aquinas Campus of the Institute of Catholic Education from 1974-84 and as Principal of the Institute of Catholic Education (now merged into Australian Catholic University) from 1981-84. He was Episcopal Vicar for Education in the Diocese of Ballarat (1973-84), a founding member of the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (1973-84), a member of the Academic Board of State College of Victoria and at different times a member of the Councils of the State College of Victoria � Ballarat, the Ballarat College of Advanced Education and Signadou College, Canberra.

From 1988-97 he was a member of the National Catholic Education Commission and from 1994-97 he was Secretary to the Bishops� Committee for Education. Since 2000, he is again a member of the Bishops� Committee for Education, becoming Chairman in 2003. In 1989 Cardinal Pell was appointed Chairman of the committee charged with setting up the new Australian Catholic University, and in 1991-95 he served as the University�s Foundation Pro-Chancellor. In 1999-2000 he assisted in the establishment of the new city campus of the University in Melbourne. Cardinal Pell has been President of the University�s board of owners since 1996.

Cardinal Pell�s commitment to Catholic tertiary education is also reflected in the role he played in helping to establish a campus of the University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney, giving the east coast of Australia its first Catholic law school and first Catholic medical school. Since 2003, he has served as Patron of the capital appeal for Campion College, Australia�s first Catholic liberal arts college.

From 1985-87 Cardinal Pell was Rector of Corpus Christi College, the Provincial Seminary for Victoria and Tasmania. In 1990 the Holy Father nominated the then Bishop Pell to the Synod of Bishops in Rome on the preparation of priests, where he served as one of the Synod spokesmen and on the Committee which prepared the final Synod Message. He was appointed Apostolic Visitor to the National Seminaries of New Zealand (1994), Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands (1995), the Pacific (1996) and Irian Jaya and Sulawesi (1998) by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in the Vatican. In 1999, as Archbishop of Melbourne, Cardinal Pell established new facilities for both Corpus Christi College in Carlton and Catholic Theological College in East Melbourne.

Cardinal Pell was Chairman of Caritas Australia, the Catholic Church�s Australian agency for overseas development and relief, from 1988-97. He was a member of the Bishops� Committee for Justice Development and Peace from 1987-97 and has been a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1990-95 and again from 2002. From 1990-2000 he was a member of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and is now Chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops� Committee for Doctrine and Morals. Having served as a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family for many years, Cardinal Pell was appointed to the Presidential Committee of the Council in 2002. In 2005 he was appointed a member of the Supreme Committee of the Pontifical Missions Societies by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples

In November, 1998, Cardinal Pell attended the Synod for Oceania in Rome. He was appointed by Pope John Paul II to represent the Bishops of Australia and Oceania at the Special Synod for European Bishops in Rome in 1999, and at the Synod of Bishops held in October 2001. Pope Benedict XVI also appointed Cardinal Pell to the Synod of Bishops held in October 2006 to mark the close of the Year of the Eucharist. From 2001-2005 he served on the Council of the Synod of Bishops, and was appointed to the new Synod Council established at the conclusion of the 2006 Synod.

In April 2002, John Paul II named Cardinal Pell President of the Vox Clara Committee to advise the Congregation for Divine Worship on English translations of liturgical texts. He was appointed as a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship in January 2005.

In April 2005, Cardinal Pell took part in the Conclave of 115 Cardinal Electors which elected His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI as the successor to Pope John Paul II.

In February 1998, Cardinal Pell attended the Constitutional Convention in Canberra as a delegate appointed by the Prime Minister. He served on the Resolutions Committee responsible for drafting motions put to the Convention and moved the motion in support of the Republican model which was finally adopted by the Convention. On 21st March 2001, he addressed a joint sitting of the Victorian Parliament on the drug problem.

Cardinal Pell was awarded the Centenary Medal by the Australian Government on 21st April 2003, in recognition of his service to the Australian community through the Catholic Church. He was made a Companion in the Order of Australia in the Queen�s Birthday Honours in 2005 for service to the Catholic Church in Australia and internationally, to raising debate on matters of an ethical and spiritual nature, to education, and to social justice.

Cardinal Pell is Grand Prior of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, Australian Lieutenancy � Southern, from 1998-2001, and was appointed Grand-Prior for the Order in New South Wales in 2001. Cardinal Pell was created Knight Grand Cross of the Order in 2003 to mark his elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals.

Cardinal Pell�s long-standing commitment to ecumenism was recognized in 1998 with the conferral of the Grand Cross of Merit of the Order of Saint Lazarus. In 2001 he was appointed National Chaplain to the Order, and was promoted to Ecclesiastic Grand Cross of St Lazarus, the Order�s highest ecclesiastical rank, in 2003. In November 2004 he attended an Australian-Indonesian summit on inter-religious dialogue and terrorism in Yogyakarta, as part of the official Australian delegation led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

As Archbishop in Melbourne and Sydney Cardinal Pell has been involved in leading pilgrimages of young Australians to World Youth Days in Rome, Toronto and Cologne. Following the Toronto World Youth Day the Archdiocese of Sydney examined the possibility of hosting the event, and formally placed a bid for this honour with the Holy See in 2005. The success of this bid was announced at the conclusion of World Youth Day in Cologne in August 2005, when Pope Benedict XV invited the young people of the world to join him in Sydney for the 2008 World Youth Day.

Cardinal Pell�s interest in and support for young people, marriages and families has been demonstrated not only in his preaching and many public statements on these matters, but also in his involvement the establishment of the Australian campus of the international John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family, the institution of Australia�s first independent commissioner to handle sexual abuse complaints against clergy, and in the creation of the Mary of the Cross Centre to assist families with a member affected by drug or alcohol abuse. As Archbishop of Melbourne he commissioned the production of To Know, Worship and Love, a series of texts for use in religious education in Catholic schools. The series continues to be used in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, and was officially launched and mandated for use in the schools of the Archdiocese of Sydney at the end of 2003.

Cardinal Pell has written widely in religious and secular magazines, learned journals and newspapers in Australia and overseas and regularly speaks on television and radio. He was editor of Light, the magazine of the Ballarat diocese from 1979-84. He is a well-known public speaker, who has lectured in the United States of America, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Croatia, and every State of Australia (except Western Australia).

In September, 1996, Oxford University Press published Issues of Faith and Morals, written by Cardinal Pell for senior secondary classes and parish groups. Other publications include The Sisters of St Joseph in Swan Hill 1922-72 (1972), Catholicism in Australia (1988), Rerum Novarum - One Hundred Years Later (1992) and Catholicism and the Architecture of Freedom (1999). Since 2001, he has been a weekly columnist for Sydney�s Sunday Telegraph. In 2004, Sydney publisher Duffy and Snellgrove published Be Not Afraid, a collection of Cardinal Pell�s homilies and writings from the last forty years.

In earlier years Cardinal Pell was a keen sports coach in soccer, Aussie Rules and rowing. He is Vice Patron of the Richmond Football Club and a long term supporter and member of the Club since he signed to play with them in 1959.

A popular biography of Cardinal Pell by senior journalist Tess Livingstone was published by Duffy and Snellgrove in 2002, and an expanded American edition of this biography was released by Ignatius Press in 2004.

� 1999-2005 Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

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