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SYDNEY, Feb. 2 (AP) — Australian Cardinal George Pell, the oldest Catholic ever convicted of sexual abuse, was remembered Thursday by mourners at his funeral in Sydney. Victim of a campaign to punish him regardless of his guilt.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters chanted slogans in the streets denouncing Pell, a staunch conservative who has angered gay rights supporters and is blamed for inaction on clergy sexual abuse one of the church leaders.
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The Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, told mourners at St Mary’s Cathedral that the clergyman, once the third-ranked cleric in the Vatican, was the author of more than a dozen books, including his conviction for child abuse in 2000. Overturn the three-volume diary written in prison before.
“After the media, the police and the political campaign have punished him, regardless of his guilt or innocence, it is a happy fruit for him to spend 404 days in jail for a crime he did not commit,” said Fisher, who has long supported his succession as Sydney’s archbishop. Say.
“Even after he was unanimously acquitted by the High Court of Australia, some continued to demonize him. But many appreciated the legacy of the most influential priest in our nation’s history,” Fisher added.
Tony Abbott, a friend of Pell’s and a former seminary student and former prime minister, described the indictment of the cardinal as a “modern day crucifixion”.
“He became a scapegoat for the church itself,” Abbott told mourners. Pell was a lightning rod for disagreements over whether the Catholic Church should be held accountable for past child sexual abuse.
Mourners watched the service on giant screens outside the crowded cathedral.
Hundreds of protesters chanted “George Pell, go to hell” in the street. Tensions flared briefly earlier when several mourners tried to remove ribbons that protesters had tied to the cathedral fence to symbolize victims of abuse.
As his coffin was carried in a hearse from the cathedral to the crypt where he is buried, more than 50 protesters chanted “shame” and sang AC/DC’s hit “Highway to Hell.”
Pell died last month in Rome at the age of 81.
News outlets reported allegations of abuse against him before Australian detectives flew to Rome to question him in 2016.
Pell returned to Australia from the Vatican in 2017 to fight decades of abuse allegations made by multiple complainants in his home state of Victoria.
He was only convicted of abusing two choirboys during his early months as Archbishop of Melbourne in the late 1990s.
His first trial ended in a deadlocked jury, but after his second trial he was unanimously found guilty. He lost his first appeal by a 2-1 decision, but was acquitted by all seven High Court judges.
He spent more than a year in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, before being released. But by then his career at the Vatican was over.
Pope Francis appointed Pell in 2014 as the first minister of the newly formed Economic Secretariat to overhaul the Vatican’s notoriously opaque finances, and he said at his funeral that Australia’s most senior Catholic had “brought determination and A firm belief lays the foundation.” The Wisdom of Vatican Economic Reform”.
Pell was revealed to be an influential critic of the Francis Papacy shortly after his death.
Pell was revealed to be the author of a memo that had been circulating in church circles for months. In the memo, Pell had lamented that the current pope was a “disaster” and a “disaster.”
Separately, the day after Pell’s death, a conservative magazine published an article, purportedly by the cardinal, denouncing Francis on issues such as the Church’s teaching on the roles of sex and women. Tested the resolve of Catholic laity on the Internet, calling it a “toxic nightmare”. The issues are likely to spark heated debate at the Vatican’s synod of bishops that Francis will convene later this year.
Sydney-based gay rights group Rainbow Rights Community Action called on people to join what it called a “Go to Hell!” protest outside the cathedral.
Pell riled up gay activists with views including: “Homosexual activity is much more harmful to health than smoking.”
Pell was Archbishop of Sydney from 2001 to 2014 before he was called to the Vatican.
He was Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996 to 2001, during which time he was accused of sexually abusing two choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral.
As a church leader in Melbourne and later Sydney, Pell repeatedly refused communion to gay activists who wore rainbow-colored sashes.
Pell is also a lightning rod as there is disagreement over whether the Catholic Church is properly responsible for past incidents of child sexual abuse.
A 2017 national inquiry into institutional responses to child sexual abuse found that Pell knew about child molestation by clergy in the 1970s but did not do enough to address the problem.
Pell later said he was “surprised” by the findings. “These views are not supported by evidence,” Pell’s statement said.
He died in Rome on January 10 of heart complications following hip surgery. On January 14, Francis gave his final blessing at Pell’s funeral mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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