Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Pope Francis uses holy water to bless the coffin of Australian Cardinal George Pell during his funeral in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 14, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Australian cardinal who decried the papacy of Pope Francis as a “catastrophe” was given a funeral Saturday and hailed by some fellow churchmen at St. Peter's Basilica, with the pontiff imparting a final blessing for the once high-ranking Vatican prelate.

Cardinal George Pell, 81, died on Jan. 10, shortly after undergoing hip surgery in a Rome hospital. As the Vatican’s finance minister for three years, Pell had been a key player in the early years of Francis’ papacy, whose goals included reforming the Holy See's finances, which had a long history of scandals and poor management.

Pell later returned to his native Australia to be tried on child sex abuse charges over allegations that he molested two choirboys while he was archbishop of Melbourne. He served more than a year in solitary confinement in prison before an earlier court conviction was overturned in 2020.

The Australian cardinal who decried the papacy of Pope Francis as a “catastrophe” was given a funeral Saturday, with the pontiff imparting a final blessing.

Pell had steadfastly proclaimed his innocence.

As is customary for funerals of cardinals, a final blessing, delivered in Latin, in the form of a prayer for mercy and eternal rest, was recited by Francis, who, in a wheelchair, passed by Pell's plain wooden coffin.

The funeral Mass itself was celebrated by an Italian cardinal, Giovanni Battista Re, in his role as Dean of the College of Cardinals.

Re praised Pell as a “man of God and man of the Church,'' who was distinguished for ”a deep faith and great solidity of doctrine, which he always defended without wavering and with courage."

"As he noted many times, he was pained by the weakening of faith in the Western world and the moral crisis of the family,'' Re said in his homily.

Only nine days earlier, Pell had attended the Vatican's funeral for Francis' predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who died after nearly a decade in retirement on Dec. 31.

Pell had lamented that the current papacy as a “disaster” and a “catastrophe.”

Right after Pell’s death, it was revealed that the Australian churchman had authored the memo that had been circulating for many months in church circles. In the memo, Pell had lamented that the current papacy as a “disaster” and a “catastrophe.”

Separately, the day after Pell died, a conservative magazine published what it said was an article by the cardinal decrying as a “toxic nightmare” Francis' determination to sound out Catholic laity on such issues as church teaching on sexuality and the role of women. Those issues will likely spark sharp debate later this year in a meeting of bishops from around the world summoned by Francis to the Vatican.

The day after Pell died, Francis in a condolence telegram paid tribute to the cardinal, saying that while the prelate led the economy office, “he laid the bases with determination and wisdom” for reforms of the Holy See's finance system, which had been taken to task for years by international financial watchdog bodies.

Among the concelebrants at the altar on Saturday was another high-profile Vatican prelate who in recent days had blasted Francis’ leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. German Archbishop Georg Gänswein — like Pell a staunch advocate of the church hierarchy’s more conservative faction and a longtime aide of Pope Benedict XVI — bitterly complained about how he was treated by Francis after Benedict retired in 2013 and Francis was elected as pontiff.

Gänswein unleashed a torrent of criticism of Francis in interviews hours after Benedict's death in a monastery on the Vatican grounds, where the retired pontiff had lived out his last year and in a book published days later.

Another staunchly conservative German churchman, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, told The Associated Press after attending Pell's funeral that the Australian cardinal left “a great legacy” including on bearing one's suffering.

“Now he is in full redemption” after death, said Mueller, who was dismissed by Francis after a brief term as the Vatican's chief of its doctrinal orthodoxy office.

___

Luigi Navarra contributed to this report.

The latest from america

Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican as they join him for the recitation of the Angelus prayer and an appeal for peace hours after the U.S. bombed nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran on June 22. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“Let diplomacy silence the guns!” Pope Leo XIV told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square a few hours after the United States entered the Iran-Israel war by bombing three of Iran’s nuclear sites.
Gerard O’ConnellJune 22, 2025
Paola Ugaz, a Peruvian journalist who helped expose the abuse committed by leaders of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, gives Pope Leo XIV a stole made of alpaca wool during the pope's meeting with members of the media on May 12 in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope Leo XIV’s statement was read at the premiere of a play about the Peruvian investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, who was subject to death threats because of her reporting on sexual abuse.
Gerard O’ConnellJune 21, 2025
Bishop Micheal Pham, center, leads an inter-faith group as they enter a federal building to be present during immigration hearings on June 20 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
About a dozen religious leaders from the San Diego area, including Bishop Michael Pham, visited federal immigration court on Friday “to provide some sense of presence.”
In a time of increasing disaffiliation from and disillusionment with the institutional church, a new theological perspective on the church is needed—one that places Jesus’ own teaching at the center.
Roger Haight, S.J.June 20, 2025