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. On March 26th 2001 the Holy Father appointed Cardinal Pell the eighth Metropolitan Archbishop of Sydney. His elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals was announced by John Paul II on September 28th 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 Educators, 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.
As Archbishop of Sydney he was host for the World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008, when he welcomed Pope Benedict, and the youth of the world, to Australia. He established a second seminary in the Archdiocese, the Redemptoris Mater Seminary of the Neo-Catechumenal way, and the Archdiocese now has a total of around 45 seminarians in formation for the priesthood. His Eminence also established Domus Australia in Rome, a residential centre for pilgrims and visitors, opened by Pope Benedict in 2011.

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; and in March 2013 Cardinal Pell was a member of the Conclave of 115 Cardinal Electors who elected His Holiness Pope Francis to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.
In April 2013 Cardinal Pell was appointed by Pope Francis to the group of eight cardinals to advise the Holy Father on the government of the universal Church and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus.
The Cardinal has been a member of various Congregations and Councils of the Holy See since 1990, when he was appointed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was a member of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Justice Development and Peace from 1987 to 1997 and has been a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1990 to 1995 and again from 2002. Since 2001 he has been chair of Vox Clara, the committee of senior English-speaking bishops to advise the Congregation for Divine Worship on the English Translation of the Roman Missal. Since 2008 he has been on the Governing Committee of the International Catholic Migration Commission.

Cardinal Pell has been on the Vatican Committee of fifteen Cardinals since 2007, which oversees the financial affairs of the Holy See and he has wide experience in Church and secular organizations. For example, the Archdiocese of Melbourne has around 140,000 students in Catholic Schools while the Archdiocese of Sydney has around 70,000 students, both Archdioceses have networks for social work, hospitals, and residences for the aged. The Sydney Archdiocese itself has around 480 diocesan and religious priests and 9500 employees.

From 1988 to 1997, Cardinal Pell was Chair of Caritas Australia, the Catholic Church’s organization for overseas relief and development and he travelled widely throughout Asia. In those years Australian Catholic Relief, as it was then called, was heavily involved in the first attempts at reconstruction in Cambodia after the overthrow of Pol Pot.

As an auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, Cardinal Pell chaired the Implementation Committee which set up the Australian Catholic University in 1991, now one of the largest Catholic Universities in the English-speaking world. He has been President of Australian Catholic University’s board of owners since 1996. His Eminence was a member of the Academic Board of the State College of Victoria throughout the 1970s and on their planning committee. Director of the Aquinas Campus of the Institute of Catholic Education from 1974-1984 and as Principal of the Institute of Catholic Education now merged into Australian Catholic University. He was a Member of the Australian Association of the Principals of Colleges of Advanced Education from 1981-1984 He invited the University of Notre Dame Australia to open a university campus in Sydney which includes faculties of medicine and law.

The Cardinal has long been active in the struggle against child abuse and in 1996 set up the Melbourne Response, combining an Independent Commissioner to judge complaints, with a compensatory panel and counselling services. This was one of the earliest such schemes to be set up in Australia and the Anglophone world.

In 1998 the Cardinal was a government appointee to the Constitutional Convention, which recommended that Australia become a republic and in 2011 he established the Sydney Catholic business network to improve dialogue between leaders in Government, business and the Church on business ethics, social justice and public life.

Cardinal Pell’s interest in and support for young people, marriage and families have been demonstrated not only in his preaching and many public statements on these matters, but also in his involvement in founding the Australian campus of the international John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family and in the creation of the Mary of the Cross Centre in Melbourne to assist families with a member affected by drug or alcohol abuse.

In February 2014 he was appointed by Pope Francis, the first Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, established by Motu Proprio of the Holy Father. This Secretariat is responsible for the preparation of the Financial Statements and Budgets of the Holy See and also for the vigilance and control of all the entities of the Holy See and Vatican City and also of the administration of the Dicasteries and Palazzi of the Vatican.