Judgment on Cardinal Pell Suspended For The Moment

Just two days ago, in the midst of the kerfuffle with Catholic Bishops, Arnold Schwarzenneger and Premier McGuinty, I received an email from a Catholic lady living in Australia who pointed to Cardinal Pell as a Bishop with some spine.

Perhaps I was hasty—I was certainly tormented—when I wrote this about the Cardinal. However, I stand by my commentary on the Cardinal and his equivocation on applying Church discipline arising from the stem cell debate in Australia. And I certainly hope the Cardinal will prove me wrong by following through with his duty to protect sinners from themselves and the Eucharist from sacrilege. Now that would be a newsmaker!

But I’ve been digging a little deeper into Cardinal Pell’s work and I must confess I am seeing some very unusual [for a Bishop in 2007] thinking and approaches. This article written by the Cardinal painted a relieving picture for me of the Cardinal’s heart, as well as this recent report fromLifeSiteNews.

So this posting is just to say that my curiosity in Cardinal Pell has been further piqued and I will be blogging soon in the future on my findings. If the Cardinal should indeed withhold Holy Communion from the Catholic politicians in Australia who defied his instruction and voted for cloning and embryonic stem cell research, I will be more than ecstatic and give him the title, along with Archbishop Burke of St. Louis, of “A Bishop With Spine,” the very kind most needed by the Church.