Speaking of his decision to enter seminary, Pell once said, "To put it crudely, I feared and suspected and eventually became convinced that God wanted me to do His work, and I was never able to successfully escape that conviction.

In April 2002, John Paul II named him President of the Vox Clara commission to advise the Congregation for Divine Worship on English translations of liturgical texts.

He said that, "on not a few occasions, inappropriate remarks glossing over the deceased's proclivities (drinking prowess, romantic conquests etc) or about the church (attacking its moral teachings) have been made at funeral Masses."

[61] In 2015, Pell's doctors judged his heart condition serious enough to prevent air travel from Italy to Australia to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

[67] On 10 January 2023, at the age of 81, Pell died of cardiac arrest following hip surgery at the Salvator Mundi hospital in Rome, having attended the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI a few days earlier.

[76][77][78][70] Leading public figures who attended the funeral service included former prime ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard, and federal opposition leader Peter Dutton.

"[84] In 2009 Pell supported, in the abstract but not as a proposal for immediate application, mandatory celebration of the Canon of the Mass with the orientation of the priest ad orientem (towards the east), facing in the same direction as the congregation.

Secondly, that the key to the whole of universe, the really significant thing, are humans and, thirdly, it is a very sophisticated mythology to try to explain the evil and suffering in the world.In 2005 Pell supported the view that the ordination of women as priests is impossible according to the church's divine constitution and said that abandoning the tradition of clerical celibacy would be a "serious blunder".

[89] During a youth conference in Parramatta, Bishop Anthony Fisher said that Pell was merely "stating the pros and cons of the Pope's decision" and those who said his comments were critical were taking him out of context.

Pell stated in his homily that mankind has a duty not "to damage and destroy or ruthlessly use the environment at the expense of future generations", but expressed scepticism regarding human activity causing climate change.

"[109] In February 2006, addressing Catholic business leaders in Naples, Florida, Pell stated: "Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion and its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited.

Launching the "Melbourne Response" protocol in 1996, Pell said: "It's a matter of regret that the Catholic Church has taken some time to come to grips with the sex abuse issue adequately.

"[136] In his final sermon as Archbishop of Sydney in 2014 before departing Australia for Rome, Pell told the congregation: "I apologise once again to the victims and their families for the terrible suffering that has been brought to bear by these crimes."

[137] Shortly after becoming Archbishop of Melbourne in August 1996, Pell discussed the issue of child abuse with the Victorian premier as well as the governor and the retired judge Richard McGarvie, who all recommended swift action.

[138] When Pell was appointed a cardinal in 2003, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said that he had established Australia's first independent commissioner to handle child sexual abuse complaints against clergy.

[161] The royal commission also considered evidence of Pell's "knowledge of rumours, allegations or complaints of Dowlan's sexual abuse of children in Ballarat", also raised in Marshall's article.

The resulting New South Wales Court of Appeal ruling established the controversial "Ellis Defence", which confirmed that the church could not be sued as a legal entity and held liable for child sexual abuse committed by a priest in such matters.

In a statement to the royal commission in March 2014, Pell reversed his earlier stance in support of the defence, saying: "My own view is that the Church in Australia should be able to be sued in cases of this kind.

[64] In June 2016 the Holy See Press Office director Federico Lombardi announced that Pell would continue in his role as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, despite being obliged to submit his resignation on turning 75.

[166][176] Ridsdale was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against children aged as young as four years during the 1970s and 1980s, with the 79 known victims thought to be a small proportion of his actual total.

Retired Victorian Supreme Court Justice Alec Southwell, appointed commissioner by the church to investigate the matter, found that the complainant, despite his long criminal record, had mostly given the impression of speaking honestly from actual recollection but concluded as follows: "bearing in mind the forensic difficulties of the defence occasioned by the very long delay, some valid criticism of the complainant's credibility, the lack of corroborative evidence and the sworn denial of the respondent, I find I am not 'satisfied that the complaint has been established'".

[197] On 20 February 2016, the Herald Sun newspaper reported that Pell had been under investigation for the past year by detectives from the Victoria Police SANO Taskforce over sexual abuse allegations involving between five and ten boys that occurred between 1978 and 2001 when he was a priest in Ballarat and when he was Archbishop of Melbourne.

[198][199] On 28 July 2016, the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Graham Ashton, confirmed that there was an investigation into alleged child sexual abuse by Pell, and stated he was awaiting advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

[203] In October 2016, three Victoria Police officers from the SANO Task Force flew to Rome to interview Pell, who participated voluntarily, regarding allegations of sexual assault.

[235] Australian media outlets generally respected the suppression order preventing publication of details on the cathedral trial whereas international news sources reported the conviction.

[230][236][237] The Melbourne-based Herald Sun posted on its front page "CENSORED" in large print in protest of the ban, noting that international sources were reporting on a "very important story that is relevant to Victorians".

In the Supreme Court on 26 March 2019, Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions named 36 media outlets, journalists and broadcasters and applied that they be found guilty, convicted and either imprisoned or fined for breaching the suppression order.

Three grounds of appeal were lodged: that the verdict was unreasonable, that permission to use in their closing address a visual aid prepared by the defence that illustrated the locations of people within the cathedral around the time of the first assault had been refused, and that Pell had not been arraigned in the presence of the jury as is required under standard criminal procedures in Victoria.

[274][275] The ABC noted that Revelation had actually been pushed back several days due to Prime Minister Scott Morrison making a televised address to the nation regarding the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, its conclusion was flawed by "[an] unquestioning belief in the defendant’s witnesses, an illogical ‘probabilistic’ analysis of a discrete, unreplicable historical event, and an eager willingness to substitute their own opinion for the jury’s verdict because it reached the ‘wrong’ outcome.