Australia: funeral with honors for Cardinal George Pell, imprisoned for sexual abuse, excluded

Two Australian states ruled out Thursday holding honorary funerals for Cardinal George Pell, the Church’s highest official, to face legal proceedings after being charged and tried for pedophilia against two altar boys in the 90’s. The former Vatican treasurer, who spent 13 months in prison before being acquitted in 2020 with the benefit of the doubt, died on Tuesday in Rome at the age of 81.

New South Wales and Victoria, which have refused to carry out the funerals of clerics born in that latter state, explained their decision was made by “Respect for survivors of child sexual abuse In the Catholic Church”.

“There will be no memorial service or state funeral for this reason it would be very distressing for every surviving victim of child sexual abuse in the Australian Catholic Church,” said Daniel Andrews, governor of the state of Victoria, where Pell was originally from and where numerous child abuses occurred while he was a priest.

At the press conference, Andrews, after offering his condolences to Pell’s friends and family, remembered the victims of the abuse, adding: “We believe you, we support you and you are at the center of not only our thoughts, not only our our words, but also our actions”.

For his part, the governor of New South Wales, Dominic Perrottet, confirmed that the cardinal’s state funeral will not be held in that territory either and reported that there will simply be a religious function being organized in the archdiocese, with no date as of moment. .

The Australian cardinal, appointed Vatican Prefect of the Economy in 2014, died in Rome, where a mass will be celebrated in his honor before his repatriation to Australia.

The figure of Pell, who was the highest ranking Catholic in his country, is marked by the sexual abuse of minors committed within the Australian church and causes enormous divisions.

Pell was born in Ballarat, about 110 kilometers west of Melbourne -the capital of Victoria-, and returned to the city to become a priest and begin his long career which took him to the archbishopric of Melbourne (1996) and Sydney (2001 ).

This was indicated in 2015 by a government commission that studied the abuses committed by religious up to 14 priests in Ballarat sexually abused children and that there have been at least 130 substantiated complaints since 1980.

This official investigation, which received about 4,500 complaints against more than 1,800 clerics for sexual abuse committed in the country between 1985 and 2015, determined in 2017 that Pell was “aware” of the problem in the Church.

It was something that the cardinal has always deniedwhile acknowledging that “a world of crime and cover-up” existed in the Catholic Church in the 1980s to protect the institution.

skin He will be buried in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.date yet to be defined. Neither the authorities of New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney, nor the federal government have announced a state funeral for the Australian clergyman.

The former Vatican treasurer has participated in two important conclaves in the recent history of the Catholic Church: in 2005 he was part of the nomination from which Pope Benedict XVI emerged and eight years later he was in the conclave in which Pope Francis was elected.

He died suddenly last Tuesday, due to complications of a hip operation performed in the Italian capital. A mass in memory of Pell was held on Thursday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in his native Ballarat, according to public channel ABC.

The lawsuits against him, the conviction and the acquittal

Former Chief Financial Officer he was considered the number 3 of the Vatican. However, his name became better known in 2018, when he became the highest authority in the Catholic Church to face trial for alleged sexual abuse.

It was in the context of reports of facts recorded in Australia between the 60s and 90s, years in which Pell began his work as a priest and then landed at the archbishopric of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria. The investigation included “multiple” historic allegations of alleged child sexual abuse.

To deal with that process, which began when the Victoria Police filed a complaint against him in June 2017, Pope Francis has granted Pell a “period of leave” from his position as prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.

At the time, Judge Belinda Wallington found there was enough evidence to open a formal trial for alleged pedophilia. Pell pleaded not guilty instead.

In December 2018 he pleaded guilty to pedophilia against two altar boys in December 1996, whom he cornered when they were 13 and boarders at the prestigious St. Kevin’s School. The gesture was repeated with one of them a few weeks later.

With information from EFE.

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