Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Cardinal Pell: new personal attacks are a bid to thwart economic reforms

Cardinal George Pell has charged that new public attacks at him are intended to thwart the economic reforms that he is leading at the Vatican.

The Australian cardinal, who now heads the Secretariat for the Economy, issued a statement in response to a new book that repeats old charges that he engaged in sexual misconduct. 

His office said that the charges “are not only regurgitating false claims but appear to have a more sinister intent.” 

The statement emphasized that the charges against Cardinal Pell have been repeatedly investigated by authorities in Australia, resulting in “no adverse findings.” 

The statement continued:
As the full impact of the Holy Father’s economic reforms now start to bite, articles seeking to discredit the Holy Father and those leading the reforms are unfortunately, to be expected. They should be recognized for such.
The book in which the charges are raised, Lussaria (“Lust”), by Emiliano Fittipaldi, is “a particularly shoddy and dated piece,” the cardinal’s office said. Fittipaldi is one of the Italian journalists who published secret Vatican documents that he obtained in the “Vatileaks II” scandal. 

Using those documents, he had produced an earlier book critical of the Vatican’s economic reforms.