He was big on sex. Inside and outside the church, George Pell built his career preaching the sex rules of his faith. Intransigence made Pell a celebrity. Standing up to the zeitgeist, demanding obedience, listing sins and condemning sinners kept him in the news.

He was always there with a crisp, dogmatic grab. Universal innocence? “A dangerous myth.” Original sin? “Alive and flourishing.” Drug taking? “Wrong and sinful.” IVF for single mothers? “We are on the verge of creating a whole new generation of stolen children.” That created a most satisfying uproar.

He accused his own church of being “frightened to put forward the hard teachings of Christ”. That he never hesitated earned him few friends, many enemies and high office.

As an archbishop in Melbourne and a cardinal in Sydney, Pell poured his energies into combating contraception, homosexuality, genetic engineering, divorce, equal marriage and abortion.

He was particularly brutal to homosexuals. When a wreath was laid outside St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne in memory of gay students in Catholic schools driven to suicide, Pell’s disdain was absolute.

“I haven’t got good statistics on the reasons for those suicides,” he declared. “If they are connected with homosexuality, it is another reason to be discouraging people going in that direction. Homosexual activity is a much greater health hazard than smoking.”

The correctives that rained down on him from secular authorities on smoking, Aids and youth suicide left Pell unchastened. He laid the blame for their troubles at the door of homosexuals themselves. He reasoned that if they didn’t keep recruiting “new members to the subculture”, there would be no gay youths to commit suicide.

He kept it simple and brutal.

‘Australia never shared Rome’s high opinion of George Pell.’ Photograph: Kristian Dowling/Getty Images

Pell was the son of a Ballarat publican who ran an SP betting operation from the front bar of the Royal Oak. The boy was picked as a leader early. He studied in Rome, was ordained in St Peter’s and, after taking a doctorate at Oxford, came back to Ballarat, which was a hellhole of paedophile abuse.

Miraculously, he survived his years as a priest on his home turf without ever noticing enough to raise the alarm. This was good for his career. He would admit years later he saw a few things and heard a few rumours but didn’t ask questions. “It was a sad story and of not much interest to me.”

Australia never shared Rome’s high opinion of George Pell. That such an uncongenial, and at times embarrassing, figure was appointed auxiliary bishop of Melbourne in 1987 distressed many of the faithful in his home country. But these were the early days of John Paul II’s papacy, when such men were being rewarded around the world. A mighty church was finding its feet again.

Pell did nothing to curb paedophile priests in his years as auxiliary bishop, though the predations of some of the worst of them were being reported to him. He didn’t know enough, he would claim, and he didn’t have the authority to act. Despite the pleas of parents and teachers, Pell left mad Father Searson, toting a gun and terrifying children, in charge of the primary school in Doveton.

If you wanted to block inquiries into the abuse of children for as long as humanly possible, Pell was your man

His elevation to archbishop shocked Melbourne Catholics. But he didn’t need to be loved by them. He didn’t need their votes. His authority came from Rome, where he sat on a number of councils policing church doctrine. These were the years the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith worked up fresh hard teachings to revile homosexuals.

Pell earned his stripes in the war on sex.

He was a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, which warned the governments of the world not to give rights to gays for to do so was to “deny a psychological problem which makes homosexuality against the social fabric … ”.

By this time, Pell had moved to Sydney and, in due course, became a cardinal. The story of his rise makes no sense without acknowledging that this prince of the church was also a fine administrator and a superb political operator.

Pell was as at home in the big end of town. He had a magical capacity to win money from governments.

‘An awkward figure in the witness box’: Pell gives evidence to Australia’s royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse via videolink from Rome. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

If you wanted to build a network of Catholic universities, Pell was your man. If you wanted to save hundreds of millions of dollars that victims of abuse might win in the courts, Pell was your man. If you wanted to block official inquiries into the abuse of children by clerics for as long as humanly possible, Pell was your man.

When the inquiry came – the first national inquiry in the world – its examination of the faults of all the faiths was forensic and damning. The Catholic church came out of the royal commission into the institutional responses to child abuse covered in shame.

Pell gave evidence several times. He cuts an awkward figure in a witness box. Answering questions is not his natural metier. But the commissioners only looked at Pell’s sins of omission, his failures over the years to protect children, to discipline priests and to comfort the abused.

They did not revisit the allegations that, as a seminarian, he had abused boys at a camp on Phillip Island. In his early days as archbishop of Sydney, Pell had to stand aside for a few months while the church examined the claims of one of those former altar boys.

The verdict of the retired judge was: not proven but not dismissed.

The commissioners grilled Pell instead on the record of the church. He admitted faults. He expressed regrets. He boasted the work of his Melbourne Response in addressing the needs of victims. He made only a grudging admission that celibacy might be “a factor” in the abuse of children.

Pell stood for a deeper truth: the sacred mission of not having priestly sex at all.

What hymns of praise this man has sung to that over the years. No sex is sacred. No sex is an offering to Christ. No sex proves our first love is to God and not one another. No sex releases energy and spirit for the service of man. No sex leaves the heart undivided. No sex makes each priest another Christ called to spiritual paternity through the sacraments.

That sort of stuff impressed John Paul II and Benedict XVI immensely, but Francis takes a rather more jaundiced view. “Behind rigidity something always lies hidden,” he said. “In many cases, a double life.”

The world can now know that a little over 20 years ago, in Pell’s first months as archbishop of Melbourne, this scourge of sex was forcing choirboys to suck his penis.

• David Marr is a Guardian Australia journalist and author of The Prince: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

• Changes were made in error to this article after publication. The original has been reinstated.