If only we could get more bishops like Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia. This profile of the good bishop shows us a man, a priest, a bishop, who isn’t going to suffer any mealy-mouthed Catholicism, yet he promises that when people see the priests he’s raising up in his archdiocese now, he’ll be seen as wishy-washy in comparison.
The idea of Pell being more determined, even tougher-minded than he was before the scandal, evokes a certain nervousness. Muscular Christianity scarcely begins to describe his style. Signed as a professional footballer before he joined the priesthood, it’s said that when he was sent as rector to Corpus Christi College, Melbourne, in the mid-1980s, determined to drive out liberalism and restore sound orthodox practice, a couple of the seminarians at his first meetings burst into tears.
