By Philip Pullella
VATICANCITY – Pope Francis gave a funeral blessing to Cardinal George Pell on Saturday as revelations that he wrote an nameless memo branding the present papacy a “disaster” hung within the air together with the incense.
About 300 folks attended Pell’s funeral Mass in a secondary chapel of St. Peter’s Basilica. In step with custom for deceased cardinals, the Mass was stated by the dean of the Faculty of Cardinals, Italian Giovanni Battista Re.
Francis arrived on the finish to gave the ultimate blessing in Latin over the darkish brown wood coffin on the ground. The coffin was incensed and sprinkled with holy water.
Re’s phrases had been much less a homily than a biography of Pell, 81, who died on Tuesday night time in a Rome hospital of coronary heart failure throughout hip substitute surgical procedure.
Re talked about that Pell had spent greater than a yr in jail earlier than being acquitted of sexual abuse allegations in his native Australia in 2020.
“The final years of his life had been marked by an unjust and painful condemnation,” Re stated.
SNAP, an advocacy group for victims of clergy sexual abuse, in an announcement had known as on the Vatican to indicate “restraint” in funeral preparations “until the Church hierarchy desires to deepen already deep wounds”.
However Pell was given an ordinary solemn Vatican funeral for a cardinal. Re started the service by studying out the complete textual content of a message the pope issued on Wednesday praising Pell for persevering in attempting occasions.
The small speak after the funeral, significantly amongst diplomats and journalists, centred across the bombshell revelation.
Final yr, revered Italian journalist Sandro Magister, who has an extended monitor file of receiving leaked Vatican paperwork, revealed an nameless memo circulating within the Vatican condemning Pope Francis’ papacy as a “disaster”.
The day after Pell died, Magister disclosed on his extensively learn weblog Settimo Cielo (Seventh Heaven) that it was Pell who wrote the memo and gave him permission to publish it beneath the pseudonym “Demos” – Greek for populace. It included what the writer stated ought to be the qualities of the following pope.
“Commentators of each college, if for various causes … agree that this preach is a catastrophe in lots of or most respects; a disaster,” the memo begins.
“The primary duties of the brand new pope will likely be to revive normality, restore doctrinal readability in religion and morals, restore a correct respect for the legislation and be sure that the primary criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic custom,” it reads.
Father Joseph Hamilton, Pell’s private secretary, declined to touch upon Magister’s report and Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni stated it had no remark.
Hamilton instructed Reuters after the funeral that Pell’s physique will likely be flown to Australia early subsequent week to be buried within the crypt at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, the place he served as archbishop.
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