Cardinal Pell is the victim of a smear campaign designed to stop him reforming the world's bishops

From http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100043709/cardinal-pell-is-the-victim-of-a-smear-campaign-designed-to-stop-him-reforming-the-worlds-bishops/

By Damian Thompson
June 16th, 2010

I write this with some urgency. For the last week, Catholic sources have been insisting that Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, will not take up his appointment as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Two reasons are given – one connected to his health, the other to utterly false sex abuse allegations he faced years ago.
I now have good reason to believe that Cardinal Pell – a man of towering presence and intellect, utterly faithful to Pope Benedict’s vision for renewing the Church – is the victim of a smear campaign endorsed by certain bishops, especially Italian ones, who are desperate to stop Pell cleaning up what are in effect the “rotten boroughs” of their dioceses. We must pray that the Holy Father ignores the campaign.
Reason number one: Pell is “in poor health”. True, he has a pacemaker. Otherwise, he’s is reasonably good shape – certainly well enough to take up his position. He’s healthier than many of his elderly critics, sitting in their dioceses doing absolutely nothing that might disturb their sleepy lifestyle.
Reason number two: Cardinal Pell is tainted by sex abuse allegations. This is garbage. The Age newspaper in Australia carries this very revealing report:
Cardinal George Pell, whose promotion to a top Vatican job was expected this month, has been dropped from consideration because of former abuse allegations against him, according to informed sources in Rome.
Cardinal Pell stood down as Archbishop of Sydney in 2002 after he was accused of abusing a teenager at a church camp in the 1960s, but an independent investigation by a retired non-Catholic judge cleared him.
Vatican watchers now say important officials have worked to undermine Cardinal Pell as the next head of the Congregation of Bishops, partly from concerns over negative publicity about the abuse allegations and partly for internal political reasons, including the desire for an Italian to take the job.
But these officials aren’t really concerned about “negative publicity” over allegations that turned out to be lies: they are exploiting those lies to protect themselves. My question: why should this campaign of black propaganda succeed? Not since the election of Benedict XVI has an appointment so horrified the smug, lazy, liberal establishment in the Vatican and the dioceses. That’s because Cardinal Pell has detailed knowledge of the situation not only in Italy, where many bishops do about as much to earn their positions as British MPs did before the Reform Act of 1832, but also in Latin America and Asia.
Cardinal Pell’s message to the bishops woud be: “Sorry, gentlemen, but this is not a job for life. You must exhibit evangelical dynamism and obedience to the Holy Father – and, if you don’t, then there are holy priests ready to take your place.” Hence this foul campaign.