By Jordan Baker
Among mourners at Cardinal George Pell’s Requiem Mass, grief was imbued with defiance.
For some, the decision to turn up at all was rebellious, given many of the country’s most prominent Catholics – the Labor prime minister and NSW Liberal premier included – considered the funeral of such a reviled cleric to be electoral poison, and stayed away.
At first, the mourners’ defiance was subtle, revealed only in their studious disregard for the chants of angry protesters – “George Pell, go to hell!” – that edged into St Mary’s Cathedral, through the stained glass from nearby Hyde Park, and reverberated around the sandstone walls.
In the summer heat, their anger simmered. Despite stark findings from the royal commission about Pell’s failure to protect children from paedophile priests, many believed they were mourning a visionary targeted by non-believers for his faith.
The fury was revealed, too, by the organisers’ refusal to allow the public broadcaster inside the cathedral – a deliberate snub sparked by what the church considered the ABC’s “unfair” coverage of allegations that Pell abused altar boys, for which he was jailed but ultimately acquitted by the High Court.
After days of public scrutiny of sexual purity practices at Catholic schools and an attack on the NSW premier’s Catholicism, a ripple of assent ran through the congregation when Pell’s brother David used his eulogy to urge Australians to resist the “woke algorithm of mistruth”.
Tony Abbott greets supporters of George Pell after the funeral service at St Mary’s Cathedral.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
Sydney Archbishop Antony Fisher also drew murmurs of agreement during his homily, when he compared Pell’s 400-odd days in jail to the innocent suffering of John the Baptist and Christ himself, and his bravery to that of St George and Richard the Lionheart.
“[Jesus told apostles that] persecution and suffering would be their opportunity to give witness,” and to not be surprised that the world hated them, Fisher said. “These are the trials through which we triumph.”
At each reference to Pell’s persecution, the approval of the congregation – especially the thousands watching the service in the heat outside – became louder.
So, when former prime minister and one-time seminarian Tony Abbott stood in front of the congregation at the end of two hours of pageantry – Latin prayers, plumes of incense, priests wearing gold and tapestries – and issued what amounted to a Catholic call to arms in Pell’s name, he set the cathedral discontent afire.
Abbott, no stranger to igniting culture wars, described Pell as a “saint for our times”, a victim of a modern-day crucifixion, and a man who exemplified “fighting the good fight”, no matter how crushing the adversity.
The funeral was, Abbott said, “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the ideals George Pell lived for, and draw strength for the struggle ahead … [this] soldier for truth, who advanced through smear and doubt and hatred, should drive a renewal of confidence throughout the universal church.”
In what some read as a hint for Pell’s beatification – one step before official sainthood – Abbott continued: “If we submit our prayers to Mother Teresa, [English martyr] Thomas Becket and St Augustine, why not the late cardinal too, who has been just as pleasing to God, I’m sure, and has the added virtue of being the very best of us?
“In these times when it’s more needful than ever to fight the good fight, to stay the course and to keep the faith, it’s surely now for the Australian church to trumpet the cause of its greatest champion.”
His words were met with thunderous applause, both within the cathedral and among the mourners outside.
The protesters did not hear him. After making their point they had left, decamping to more welcoming surrounds at Taylor Square.
Those whose lives were destroyed by abusive priests, and who hold Pell responsible for the church’s failure to act, may have hoped Pell’s influence and his strident brand of Catholicism would die with him. But if Abbott has anything to do with it, the cardinal’s influence will live on as a symbol of Catholic defiance.
The era of Pell the man is over, but that of Pell the martyr may be just beginning.
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