Vatican funeral for Australian Cardinal Pell

(14 Jan 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vatican City - 14 January 2023
1. Pope Francis sitting in front of Cardinal George Pell’s coffin
2. Tilt down on Saint Peter's altar
3. Close of coffin
4. Pan of service
5. Mid of mourners including Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu
6. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of the Cardinals:
“We are here united to entrust cardinal George Pell’s soul to God, whom God called by his side at the age of 81."
7. Wide of service
8. Close of David Pell, Cardinal George Pell’s brother
9. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of the Cardinals:
“Man of God and man of the Church, characterised by a deep faith and great firmness of doctrine, that always defended without hesitations and with bravery. Worried only to be loyal to Jesus Christ. As he has repeatedly pointed out, he was saddened by the weakening of faith in the Western world and the moral crisis of the family.”
10. Close of coffin
11. Wide of service
12. Pope Francis sitting in front of coffin
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
“(His) great legacy was his testimony for the Christian faith, the hope also in this time when he suffered innocently in the prison and he gave us a three volumes of his experiences. His isolation for 23 hours every day in the prison and he was a great witness for the hope Jesus gave us also in our Cross, when we are savoring our Cross, and he believed also surely in the resurrection and now it is almost better for him, now he is in full redemption."
14. Pope Francis sitting during service
15. Pallbearers carrying away coffin as congregation applauds
16. Close of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu leaving the funeral
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Sylvie Solanet, former missionary of the Neocatechumenal way in Sydney and friend of Cardinal Pell:
“We were really close and it was a shock for me when I heard of his death like all of a sudden. And he was with one of the family who was with me in Sydney, they all had lunch with him last week, so he was somebody you could really rely on, speak to easily, and he was almost very interested in all, everything happening in the world, our feelings, the feelings of the youth."
18. Saint Peter’s dome
19. Wide of Saint Peter's Basilica
STORYLINE:
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.

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.










AP video shot by Luigi Navarra.



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