George Pell was an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican from 2014 to 2019 and a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers from 2013 to 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made a cardinal in 2003. Pell was the eighth Archbishop of Sydney (2001–2014), the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001) and an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne (1987–1996). He was also an author and columnist. As a conservative, Pell maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining an adherence to Catholic orthodoxy.