Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop of Sydney George Pell and seven other cardinals to advise him on how to reform the Catholic Church.

The eight cardinals will help the newly-elected Pontiff put into place changes in the Curia.

The Curia has been held responsible for some of the mishaps and scandals that plagued the eight-year reign of Pope Benedict XVI before he resigned in February.

Pope Francis was elected by a conclave of cardinals a month ago amid expectations he would undertake reforms.

The seven other prelates come from Italy, Chile, India, Germany, Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States and Honduras.

An Italian archbishop will act as secretary of the group, which will hold its first formal meeting in October in Rome.

The Vatican says Pope Francis has already been in contact with each of them.

A spokeswoman for Cardinal Pell, Katrina Lee, says he is looking forward to the opportunity to assist the Pope in the important task.

"Cardinal Pell will be in Rome over the next couple of weeks and he will probably be meeting with the Pope during that time to discuss what hopefully will be the intentions of the committee in October, and what they hope to achieve after that," she said.

"Cardinal Pell is looking very much to see how he can contribute to the committee."

Ms Lee says the international composition of the committee shows that the Pope is a fresh thinker.

"When the Pope appointed the group of cardinals he was very keen to hear and listen to what a number of people think, and what they've said in the past about the Curia and how they can make it work in the future, and how they can improve it for the Pontificate in general," she said.

"(He is) making sure that he's speaking to a wide range of people, not just people who might be in Rome, or might be associated with the previous Pontificate, but also trying to reach out to people and getting an idea and a feeling of what's happening in various parts of the world and how various people are thinking."

The Pope inherited a church struggling to deal with priests' sexual abuse of children, the alleged corruption and infighting in the central administration and conflict over the running of the Vatican's scandal-ridden bank.

Benedict left a secret report for Pope Francis on the problems in the administration, which came to light when sensitive documents were stolen from the pope's desk and leaked by his butler in what became know as the "Vatileaks" scandal.

The basic failings of the Curia were aired, sometimes passionately, at closed-door meetings of cardinals before they retired into the conclave that elected Francis.

The Vatican statement said Pope Francis set up the group to respond to suggestions during those meetings.

Poor governance

In the wake of Pope Benedict's historic resignation in February, Cardinal Pell criticised the Curia and its governance during the Vatileaks scandal.

"I think the governance is done by people around the Pope and that wasn't always done brilliantly," he said at the time.

"I'm not breaking any ground there, this is said very commonly.

"A change of procedures would have made it more difficult but it's easy to be wiser after the event, it was totally unprecedented."

Anger at the mostly Italian prelates who run the Curia was one of the reasons that cardinals chose the first non-European pope for 1,300 years and quashed the chances of one of the frontrunners, Milan Archbishop Angelo Scola.

Benedict's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and sentenced by a Vatican court to 18 months in prison last year but Benedict pardoned him and he was freed just before Christmas.

Pope emeritus Benedict (L) left a secret report on the problems with the Vatican's Curia for Pope Francis (R). ( AFP: Osservatore Romano )

ABC/Reuters