Cardinal Pell Affair: Mere “Frame-up by his Opponents”?

By: Ovide Bastien

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

“Major report, as solid as dismaying”, asserts Louis Cornellier in his review of François De Labarre’s Vatican Offshore : l’argent noir de l’Église (2023).
The fundamental thesis of this book is that Pope Francis is successfully waging a courageous and remarkable struggle against the financial corruption in which the Vatican City has been immersed for decades. And that Australian Cardinal George Pell has played a decisive role in this struggle.
That is why those profiteering at the Vatican are said to have sent a few million dollars to those in Australia who have been relentlessly persecuting this cardinal for years, writes Cornellier. “The pedophilia accusations brought against Pell in 2017, for acts allegedly committed in 1996, are said to be a frame-up by his opponents who fear the loss of their pork barrel,” says Cornellier. “Convicted in 2018, Pell was finally exonerated in 2020, before passing away in January 2023.”
Having followed the Cardinal Pell Affair closely for several years, I am deeply disturbed to see De Labarre presenting it as a mere frame-up against him. And also to see Cornellier, in his book review, simply reproducing, with an astonishing lack of critical judgment, this version of the affair.
In what follows, I am thus reproducing, as faithfully as possible, both versions: first, the “frame-up” version presented in Vatican Offshore, and second, that of the victims of clerical sexual abuse in Australia and their families.
Once provided with this basic information, readers should be able to decide, with more discernment, which of the two versions seems more plausible.