Tony Abbott and Archbishop Anthony Fisher lead tributes for a ‘lionheart’ George Pell

Cardinal George Pell was farewelled in Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral on Thursday, with devout Catholics, treasured friends and powerful supporters in attendance.

Cardinal George Pell’s coffin is carried into St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, during his funeral mass. Picture: Giovanni Portelli, The Catholic Weekly

Through tears, inspiring music, gentle humour, spontaneous outbreaks of applause and memories, the vast congregation in St Mary’s Cathedral came to know George Pell as never before during his ­funeral mass on Thursday.

From his efforts to ensure Indigenous Youth were included in World Youth Day 2008 and his making friends at David’s Place for the homeless in Rushcutters Bay, to his washing his socks in the shower and putting his jumpsuit on backwards during 404 days of solitary confinement in jail in Melbourne, and his enjoying sweeping out the area near his cell, so he could hear the birds sing – the stories came thick and fast.

They were told by his successor, Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, in his homily and by the cardinal’s brother, David Pell, and by Tony Abbott, who attended along with John Howard.

His legacies included the tertiary institutions he founded and backed: the Australian Catholic University, Notre Dame University in Sydney, and Campion College liberal arts college.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher during the service. Picture: Giovanni Portelli, The Catholic Weekly

David Pell opened his tribute echoing his tribute with “Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi” as he did in Rome in 2003 when his brother was made a cardinal by Saint John Paul II. He recalled his brother’s love, phoning his family every few days from wherever he was in the world, and Pell’s enjoyment, at age 80, having his first kick of a football for 40 years with David’s grandson, who joined his family in Thursday’s offertory procession.

Mr Pell also recalled the cheering in Barwon Prison when the ­inmates learned from television his brother’s conviction had been quashed 7-nil by the High Court.

Mr Abbott, as a layman offering a eulogy, did not need to heed the cardinal’s memo to clergy in 2007 about not canonising the ­deceased at funerals but focusing on the scriptures and the faith, especially regarding the resurrection and God’s mercy.

The funeral, Mr Abbott said, was “less a sad farewell to a great friend; and more a joyous tribute to a great hero … the celebration of a wonderful life; a once-in-a-generation gathering of the people of faith to rededicate ourselves to the ideals George Pell lived for; and to draw strength from each other for the struggles ahead”.

The cardinal, he said, was a priest, a bishop, and the prefect of a Vatican Secretariat, but he was never a mere functionary, Mr Abbott said. In each role, he was “a thinker, a leader, a Christian warrior, and a proud Australian who wanted our country, and our civilisation, to succeed”.

Archbishop Fisher, who did get the memo in 2007, stuck to scriptural and religious themes: “This one last time, Your Eminence, I will try to do as I’m told.’’

What would delight the cardinal most was Archbishop Fisher’s news that on Wednesday, he welcomed 17 newcomers at Sydney’s Seminary of the Good Shepherd, the largest intake of trainee priests since 1986. “For our family to receive 17 newcomers as it loses one leonine old-timer is a great grace,’’ Archbishop Fisher said.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott with George Pell’s brother David. Picture: Giovanni Portelli, The Catholic Weekly

“I know that Cardinal Pell, such a great friend of seminarians and young priests, and such a believer in the good that priests do, was interceding for this.

“At this news I expect he is doing cartwheels with his new hips and heart in heaven.”

The news of the seminary intake drew an outburst of applause.

The cardinal had a big heart Archbishop Fisher said, strong enough to endure persecution, but soft enough to care for priests, youth, the homeless, prisoners and imperfect Christians.

“Ultimately, that heart gave out, but only after more than 80 years of being gradually conformed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,’’ Archbishop Fisher said.

“Twenty three days ago, the lion’s roar was unexpectedly ­silenced. But George the Lionheart was dressed with the cross on his chest and ready, awaiting his ­master’s return.’’

Cardinal Pell’s secretary from Rome, Father Joseph Hamilton, also drew a lion analogy in his homily at Vespers in the cathedral on Wednesday, as the faithful gathered to sing the psalms and pray for the cardinal’s soul.

A protester is arrested outside the cathedral. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Cardinal Pell, Father Hamilton said, was “a lion of the church, a magnet for vocations, a confessor bishop, a true cardinal priest.’’ In Rome, he said, the cardinal had been held in enormous esteem and affection by the Swiss guards, who saw in him a reflection of their oath to protect and serve.

After the Mass, Archbishop Fisher, more than a dozen bishops and about 300 priests laid Cardinal Pell to rest in the Cathedral Crypt. In a fitting coincidence, it was the feast of Candlemas Day, 40 days after Christmas, which commemorates the presentation of baby Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem by His mother, Mary, and His foster father, Joseph. As St Luke’s Gospel recalls, Simeon, the high priest of the temple, on seeing the child said – “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples’’.

For a man of faith, it makes a great epitaph.