Pell’s secret memo casts shadow over funeral of cardinal

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters – Pope Francis performed a funeral blessing for Cardinal George Pell on Saturday, as revelations about a memo he wrote calling the current papacy a “catastrophe,” were echoed in the air.

Pell’s funeral mass was attended by around 300 people in a secondary chapel at St. Peter’s Basilica. As per tradition, the funeral Mass was celebrated by Giovanni Battista Re (dean of the College of Cardinals), in keeping with the tradition of deceased cardinals.

Francis arrived at its end and gave the last blessing in Latin over the wooden coffin made of dark brown wood. The coffin was incensed, and holy water sprinkled on it.

Re’s words were not a homily but a biography of Pell (81), who died Tuesday night after undergoing hip replacement surgery in Rome.

Re noted that Pell spent more than one year in prison before being released from jail for sexual abuse allegations in Australia.

Re stated, “The last years were marked by an unfair and painful condemnation.”

SNAP, an advocacy group representing clergy sexual abuse victims, has called upon the Vatican to exercise “restraint” when arranging funerals “unless the Church hierarchy wishes to worsen already deep wounds.”

Pell was however given the standard Vatican funeral for cardinals. Re began the service reading the full text from a message sent by the pope on Wednesday, in which he praised Pell’s persistence during difficult times.

The bombshell revelation was the focus of much of the small talk that followed the funeral, especially among journalists and diplomats.

Sandro Magister (an Italian journalist with a track record in receiving leaked Vatican documents) published last year an anonymous memo that condemned Pope Francis’s papacy as a “catastrophe.”

Magister, who was widely known for his blog Settimo Cielo (“Seventh Heaven”), revealed that Pell wrote the memo. He also gave permission to Magister to publish the memo under the pseudonym Demos – Greek for populace. It also included the qualities that the author believed would make the next pope.

The memo starts with the following: “Commentators from every school, even if for different reasons, agree that this pontificate [is] a disaster in many or all respects; it is a catastrophe,”

It reads: “The first tasks for the new pope are to restore normality and restore doctrinal clarity and morals in faith and religion, restore proper respect for law, and ensure that acceptance of the Apostolic Tradition is the first criterion of the nomination of bishops.”

Pell’s personal secretary, Father Joseph Hamilton, declined to comment upon Magister’s report. Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesperson, stated that they had no comment.

Hamilton confirmed to Reuters after the funeral, that Pell’s corpse will be flown to Australia next week to be buried at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney. Hamilton also served as Archbishop.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella, Editing by Mark Potter