Cardinal Pell Represents the Life of the Church in Our Age COMMENTARY: The cardinal, who turns 80 June 8, is a welcome presence in Rome these days. Cardinal George Pell holds the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament during the annual Eucharistic procession at the Angelicum in Rome on May 13. (photo: Daniel Ibanez/CNA) Source:Ncregister Cardinal George Pell turns 80 on June 8. He has, to an extraordinary degree, represented in his person the life of the Church in our age. Ordained a priest in 1966, he would live the first 20 years of his priesthood in the post-Vatican II turmoil that afflicted the Church in Australia. A priest in Ballarat, he served in the 1970s under Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, later discovered to be greatly negligent in one of Australia’s most notorious cases of clerical sexual abuse. ...