Cardinal George Pell: A Timeline
Early Years
1941 George Pell is born in the Victorian town of Ballarat to an Irish Catholic mother and a non-practising Anglican father.
1960 Pell begins studying for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College in Werribee.
1966 Pell is ordained by Cardinal Grégoire-Pierre Agagianian, an Armenian Catholic and a leading figure on communism and the Soviet Union.
1972 Father Pell returns to Ballarat as a parish priest.
1973 He lives with Gerard Ridsdale who was later convicted for sexual abuse in the 1960s-1980s. Pell has maintained he never knew of the abuse, which was a focus of questioning by Australia’s royal commission in 2016.
1977 Father Pell is part of a committee that sends Ridsdale to his next parish of Edenhope. His bishop, Ronald Mulkearns, knew about complaints against Ridsdale but Pell told a 2016 royal commission that the bishop deliberately withheld details from him and other consultors.
