The John-Henry Westen Show - Death of a Prince： Remembering Cardinal George Pell

00:00:00.000 Cardinal Pell deserves to be commended and eulogised in death simply for sticking to his

00:00:06.600 job description. Is it that much to ask that the bishops of the church merely do their job?

00:00:14.020 As an employer, I expect my staff to read their job description once in a while,

00:00:19.300 and I expect the priests of our church to keep the promises that they made on the day

00:00:24.920 of their ordination. The fact that he stands out head and shoulders above the sacred college

00:00:31.180 is simply because he was doing his job.

00:00:36.340 Hello, Lycius friends. This show is a tribute to George Cardinal Pell, a great prince of the church

00:00:41.880 who just passed away suddenly last week after his hip surgery. Even though he came out fine

00:00:47.560 while speaking with the anesthetist, he had a cardiac arrest and died. Now, I have a very special

00:00:54.600 guest for you who knew Cardinal Pell for all of his life. He grew up in the same small town.

00:00:59.700 He was a student of then Archbishop Pell in seminary, and he served his masses, and he was a friend.

00:01:05.940 We're going to get an up-close look at this prince of the church in just a moment,

00:01:10.420 but I wanted to give you my own reflections on Cardinal Pell as well. In 2006, LifeSite was

00:01:15.840 blessed to interview him at length, and then in 2015, he came to speak at our Rome Life Forum.

00:01:21.300 And I was just in touch with him by email on January the 4th about interviewing him while

00:01:26.420 I was there in Rome, and the dates he couldn't make because he said he had to attend a charismatic

00:01:31.260 retreat. It's an email that I am going to cherish. So, Cardinal Pell was a man persecuted for the faith

00:01:38.840 by the modernist horde. Most famously, he was falsely convicted of sexual abuse of minors,

00:01:44.900 only to be jailed for more than a year. Most of that, by the way, in solitary confinement.

00:01:49.960 And then he was unanimously exonerated. But what did this heroic man of God say after his release?

00:01:57.940 First of all, the thing he looked forward to most of all was saying a private mass because he hadn't

00:02:02.380 been able to, which was just awesome. But in addition to that, he accepted his time in prison

00:02:07.180 as a gift and a grace, he said. He said this, and I quote,

00:02:11.920 God writes straight with crooked lines, and given that I was sentenced to jail,

00:02:16.560 I do regard it as a gift and a grace. So, he was a great defender of the faith. Just prior to his

00:02:24.780 death, which took place on January the 10th, he gave an interview to The Spectator, in which the

00:02:31.440 Cardinal accused or criticized Pope Francis' Synod on Synodality, calling it a toxic nightmare.

00:02:38.540 The article was actually published the day after his death, and he said this,

00:02:43.400 The Catholic Synod of Bishops is now busy constructing what they think of as God's

00:02:48.620 dream of synodality. Unfortunately, the Cardinal continued, this divine dream has developed into

00:02:54.940 a toxic nightmare, despite the good bishops' professed good intentions. He called the synod

00:02:59.840 document for the upcoming synod on synodality, and I quote,

00:03:03.400 the most incoherent document ever sent out from Rome, end quote. That was, of course,

00:03:08.600 because of its inclusion of the LGBT groups and proposing a female diaconate. He said,

00:03:14.260 and I quote again,

00:03:15.320 What is one to make of this potpourri, this outpouring of New Age goodwill? It is not a

00:03:21.660 summary of Catholic faith or a New Testament teaching. It is incomplete, hostile in significant

00:03:27.200 ways to the apostolic tradition, and nowhere acknowledges the New Testament as the Word of God,

00:03:32.300 normative for all teaching on faith and morals. Just also this week, the veteran Vatican journalist

00:03:39.700 Sandro Magister has reported that the late Cardinal was actually the author of a kind of secret

00:03:48.200 2022 memo sent to Cardinals, which was known as the Demos Memo. And it severely criticized Pope Francis

00:03:57.880 and highlighted the key issues that the next Pope would need to address, writing to his fellow

00:04:05.540 cardinals, or at least this is what we hear was him writing to his fellow cardinals. So Lifeside

00:04:09.420 actually asked Sandro Magister about it, and here's what Sandro had to say to us. He said that Sandro had

00:04:15.420 personally received the memo, signed Demos, original in English, he said, from Cardinal Pell with

00:04:21.620 permission to publish it, provided the name of the real author is kept confidential. Now, the original

00:04:27.780 memo, said Sandro Tuas, was written all and only by him from the first to the last line. So the

00:04:35.740 Demos Memo opened with a summary of criticisms, and I'll quote it for you. It says, commentators of

00:04:42.840 every school, if for different reasons, with the possible exception of Father Spadaro, SJ, agree that

00:04:49.080 this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects, a catastrophe. The author, that is probably

00:04:55.900 Cardinal Pell. He argued that while Rome as the seat of the Popes had previously been a voice of

00:05:01.880 clarity, today is a promoter of confusion. The papacy is silent, he said, in the face of heresies,

00:05:11.720 and at the same time, there is, I quote, an active persecution of the traditionalists and the

00:05:17.860 contemplative convents. Demos, the author, who presumably is Pell, wrote that the next Pope must

00:05:24.060 understand that the secret of Christian and Catholic vitality comes from fidelity to the teachings of

00:05:29.960 Christ and Catholic practices. It does not come from adapting to the world or from money. As such,

00:05:37.500 said Demos, the cardinals had to elect a new pope swiftly to restore normality, restore doctrinal

00:05:45.540 clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law, and ensure that the first criterion for

00:05:51.380 the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition, end quote. I remember in

00:05:58.200 the first Synod on the Family in 2014, where communion for the divorce and remarried was brought

00:06:03.520 up first. He said it would be disastrous for the Church, but he always trusted that Pope Francis would

00:06:08.700 do the right thing. He was very naive in that regard. But, you know, one of the things he did do at the

00:06:16.260 time was something very controversial. He actually gave an intro to one of those books of the cardinals.

00:06:22.360 This one was called The Gospel of the Family that was opposed to the going down the road that

00:06:27.620 eventually Pope Francis did go down to allow for divorce and remarried communion with the Morse

00:06:31.480 Letizia and especially the explanation thereafter. But in his intro to the book, he said, and this is

00:06:37.520 Cardinal Pell said, were the decisions that followed the Henry VIII divorce totally unnecessary? And of course,

00:06:43.260 that refers to the famous divorce and killing of his wives, but divorce and remarriage of Henry VIII.

00:06:49.540 And he's making that comparison. But my favorite recollection from Cardinal Pell goes way back,

00:06:57.740 way back, not as far as LifeSite's very beginning, but still within our first decade or so. It was a

00:07:05.000 interview from Cardinal Pell in 2004 that was just so beautiful. We reported on it at LifeSite News.

00:07:11.760 Cardinal Pell, who was even then widely believed to me among the bishops most faithful at the time

00:07:18.760 to John Paul II and his teachings on morality, he made a public confession of repentance for having

00:07:25.240 failed to preach sufficiently on morality, particularly sexual morality. And it was so

00:07:31.820 beautiful. It was in Australia's magazine called The Bulletin. And he was talking about a collection of

00:07:39.560 his sermons over the past 40 years. And he said, in going through them, one of the things that struck

00:07:44.560 me, and I think it's a failing, is how little I've preached on morality, let alone sexual morality,

00:07:50.840 in my Sunday sermons. Cardinal Pell also revealed that the false accusation of sexual abuse, which he

00:07:56.400 endured over and over, now this was already 2004, which he was completely vindicated on, it was to him

00:08:03.000 an encouragement to be less wishy-washy. He told the interview at the time that going through that

00:08:09.240 ordeal of being accused of sexual abuse, it changed him. And he said, I had a quote,

00:08:14.240 I hope I wasn't too wishy-washy in the past. But you know, when clear issues are at stake,

00:08:20.580 I think I would be less hesitant than I ever was to back off. I think I'm just saying that more than

00:08:27.360 ever, if I felt something important was at stake, neither hell nor high water should shift me. He

00:08:33.480 held great hope for the future of the church. He talked about young priests in his diocese. And he

00:08:39.660 said, and I quote, they'll be much tougher in their approach than I am. They'll make me look a bit

00:08:47.500 wishy-washy, small L liberal. Stay tuned for this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.

00:09:02.220 John McCauley, welcome to the program. Thank you. Good to be invited onto the show, John Henry.

00:09:06.500 Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

00:09:09.660 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. First of all, John, let me say my condolences to you

00:09:17.080 on the passing of this man that you've known your entire life. Why don't we just start there? Why

00:09:23.700 don't you give us how you knew George Cardinal Pell and how he affected you? John Henry, Australia is now

00:09:33.060 mourning the life and death of one of its most remarkable figures, regardless of how you look

00:09:41.680 upon him from my perspective as someone who knew him my entire life. Cardinal Pell was my local bishop

00:09:50.200 when I was a schoolboy growing up at a nearby Catholic school to where he was auxiliary.

00:09:55.100 When he went on to be the Archbishop of Melbourne, I joined his seminary and studied under him. He'd come

00:10:00.840 into the seminary and teach patristics. My family are from the same neck of the woods, Ballarat,

00:10:06.580 where he grew up, went to the same high school as my own grandfather. When he was transferred to

00:10:13.320 Sydney, I myself moved up to Sydney where I run my own business. And so I've known his eminence

00:10:20.840 throughout my entire life. I've had a real regard for his work ethic. And I also had the opportunity to

00:10:28.940 attend various sessions of his trial, where he was put on trial for trumped up charges. And then

00:10:35.820 eventually I attended the High Court here in the Australian capital, Canberra, where he was

00:10:40.960 eventually acquitted unanimously by these trumped up charges. So his eminence is someone who I've

00:10:47.960 gotten to know as both a mentor and a friend. And I'm mourning deeply these days here in Sydney

00:10:55.480 at his sad passing. It's one of the things that should be cleared up, first of all, even though

00:11:00.740 he was acquitted. And because it happened so far away, there is still a lag and perhaps a reticence

00:11:08.440 on the part of the mainstream media in the West to say, oh, it's all good now. It's more like,

00:11:15.400 yeah, he got away with it. Give us more of the nuts and bolts on the controversy and the resolution.

00:11:21.800 But also the latest developments on the case of the false charges made against him. With his death,

00:11:29.300 not 48 hours ago, Australian law doesn't in any way constrain defamation about dead people. Now,

00:11:37.900 we as civilised Christians would never speak ill of the dead and especially the recently dead.

00:11:43.020 But the past 48 hours here in Australia has been marked with the great haters coming out and saying

00:11:49.060 the most despicable things about his eminence. Anyone who would even have a passing acquaintance

00:11:55.220 with him, his personality, his fidelity to the church and his regard for the rule of law throughout

00:12:03.680 his entire life would know that those allegations are such a remove from the man whom I knew and loved.

00:12:10.520 And so there's a new development, which is an enormous amount of opprobrium, all of which is

00:12:16.060 born of a mendacious media and a hostile institutions of state here in Australia, where politicians and

00:12:24.720 the media fomented an air of suspicion. Institutions of state like the police force took out quarter page

00:12:34.180 ads in the daily broadsheet spruiking for anyone to make complaints against his eminence. That's unheard

00:12:42.580 of in the history of Australia, that the police would start an investigation when there had never been

00:12:48.720 any complaint against the then Archbishop of Melbourne. So we're in new and sad territory here

00:12:55.040 in Australia. But it's important that good journalists do their work. It's important that LifeSite News

00:13:00.440 probes this matter, because I think in the long view of history, it'll in fact be the Australian

00:13:06.820 institutions, the police and the judiciary, about whom more will be known as the years pass. But

00:13:15.000 his eminence's legacy is considerable and uncontestable. I was graced to meet him a number of times. We

00:13:22.700 actually had a two hour meeting, just the two of us in his apartment in Rome when, well, in his office

00:13:30.860 in Rome anyway, just before he went to Australia. And he was so sure that he could finally face these

00:13:40.440 charges and make them with him. He so trusted the system. And I remember telling him, I don't think

00:13:47.460 it's going to go that way. But he was so sure he was such a trusting man. If you could speak to that,

00:13:53.160 that would be great.

00:13:54.780 As a as a cardinal, as a member of the Sacred College, his eminence carried a diplomatic passport.

00:14:00.660 That meant that his return to Australia was entirely voluntarily. When the court case began,

00:14:09.520 he was never required to pay bail to remain at liberty. The court was more than happy

00:14:16.500 to have him living privately here as the court case went on, even as the first findings of the

00:14:23.100 court were made known. It was only at sentencing and upon his conviction that he then endured 404

00:14:29.340 nights of incarceration. But he did cooperate with the process fully. And of course, his confidence in

00:14:37.300 the process was born of his confidence that truth prevailed. It just took a lot longer. And it was a very

00:14:43.240 expensive process. And it involved 404 nights, most of which were spent in solitary confinement.

00:14:50.300 But this is something that he's dealt with extensively in his three volume prison diaries

00:14:55.580 that are very well worth the read. And I think to use an expression that his eminence often quoted,

00:15:03.340 it was an opportunity to make his soul. I think he emerged from prison as someone who had taken the

00:15:11.000 opportunity to catch up on a lot of prayer time, given how much of his career as a bishop was spent

00:15:17.040 in the administration and governance of dioceses, and of course, his assistance to the universal church

00:15:23.580 from Rome. But he made good use of the time, even in prison.

00:15:28.100 Who would have thought that that good use of that time would be actually his preparation for death?

00:15:34.120 Well, ultimately, his death is very untimely. I got a call from Rome in the wee hours of Wednesday

00:15:41.300 morning asking me to confirm the rumours that were going around. And I was quite shocked that within

00:15:47.560 a couple of hours, the independent confirmation had come through. And so Catholics here in Sydney and those

00:15:54.940 who knew him worldwide are still very much in mourning. But I'm sure the tributes will flow thick and fast as

00:16:01.680 he's a man who had an enormous impact on the lives of many. And his legacy will be enduring. And I think

00:16:08.280 he will continue to have an impact in death as he had in life.

00:16:13.300 Indeed so. Indeed so. If you can give us perhaps a few of your recollections to whet our appetites to

00:16:20.320 read his prison diaries, because I think they're very well worth reading, but also give us something of

00:16:28.640 them that that you think really characterizes the man.

00:16:31.580 Candor would be the first quality in the in the prison diaries. He talks in very vivid terms,

00:16:40.040 and he draws in all of the people that he knew and corresponded with him and the small details of

00:16:46.800 prison life and then the opportunities that prison life gave him to reflect back upon his entire life.

00:16:54.320 One of the more oblique passages he makes, and I don't think too many people would pick up on it

00:17:00.580 because he dispatches the topic within a sentence or two. He makes oblique reference to receiving a plain

00:17:07.000 envelope handed to him by a visiting priest from Rome. He doesn't mention it explicitly, but that was

00:17:14.600 a letter from his holiness, the Pope. It was a letter that did not bear the letterhead of

00:17:21.940 the Holy See. But it was good to see that some consolation was given and some recognition

00:17:28.280 was given to him during his time in prison. But again, he he didn't make that explicit in the book.

00:17:34.160 I was very grateful the references he made to some of the initiatives that I took while he was in prison,

00:17:40.960 including singing Christmas carols. I coordinated a group of Catholics to stand outside the street in

00:17:49.500 front of the penitentiary. And for an hour or two, with full throated voice, our Christmas carols

00:17:57.540 somehow made it up into his very small cell. Again, it was just an opportunity for the cardinal to write

00:18:05.200 something of a spiritual reflection. There's a reason why cardinals wear red. And George Pell was

00:18:13.940 someone who always fulfilled his job description. And the role of the cardinal is to suffer and if

00:18:19.680 necessary, to bleed and die for the church. There's very few members of the College of Cardinals

00:18:25.040 seem to suffer willingly, but his eminence took it all on with great cheer.

00:18:30.980 Right after his death comes a very revealing interview. If you could characterize some of that

00:18:38.840 for us, but also give us your take on his saying these rather startling things in the midst of

00:18:48.160 what's going on in Rome right now. The many important contributions to church life he made,

00:18:52.320 his eminence, even though he was 81 years of age, was in fact making in recent weeks and months his

00:18:59.040 most important contribution to the church, which was to network amongst the College of Cardinals.

00:19:04.580 There's no doubt going to be not just a consistory, but a conclave in the course of the years to come.

00:19:13.460 And very few of the cardinals even know each other. They've been selected in recent years from very

00:19:18.140 obscure dioceses. Pope Francis has called very, very few consistories where the cardinals can come

00:19:26.020 together. So Cardinal Pell was using his time living in retirement in Rome to network.

00:19:33.620 And I think his biggest contribution has in fact been cut short by his sudden death, because we

00:19:42.000 desperately need a functional college of cardinals to assist the current Pope, to assist the upcoming

00:19:50.400 conclave and to ensure that the next Pope puts the bark of Peter on a far better footing than what

00:19:59.380 Cardinal Pell described in the British Spectator magazine, which was only published the article

00:20:04.480 yesterday, where he talks about the synod on synods being a process that's entirely foreign to the

00:20:13.060 church, that an air of neo-Marxism is now falling upon the functionings of the Vatican. So he doesn't pull

00:20:22.420 any punches. He never did through his life. And it's great that his clearest contribution is one

00:20:28.620 that alerts Catholics to the fact that this synod has already been hijacked before it's even properly

00:20:35.620 begun.

00:20:36.900 Unlike Pope Benedict, who did pull a lot of punches, we actually learn more after the fact from Pope

00:20:44.180 Benedict's passing. This is stunning. I'm sure you saw it, but I'm just going to play a little clip

00:20:48.940 right now of Cardinal Pell's interview on EWTN regarding the death of Pope Benedict. Let's have a

00:20:57.360 quick look.

00:20:59.460 My greatest memory, he insisted that the great liturgical celebrations, the masses, that we

00:21:09.000 should work hard that they are prayers and acts of adoration. And so he insisted on reverence

00:21:17.320 and quiet. And we had something like 400,000 at the Vinyl Mass, the biggest gathering in Australian

00:21:25.360 history. And after communion, I could hear the birds singing. A wonderful moment of recollection and

00:21:39.680 adoration and prayer.

00:21:43.000 In your experience, what was he like one-on-one as a person?

00:21:48.700 Oh, the complete opposite of the caricatures of his enemies.

00:21:55.640 If I can get your take on the Cardinal's words there with regard to the late Pope Emeritus Benedict.

00:22:02.300 Obviously, he held Pope Benedict in very high regard. Cardinal Pell described the most surprising

00:22:08.040 thing to happen to him in his entire life was back in 1990 when he was a junior auxiliary bishop

00:22:15.180 in Melbourne and was called to serve on the congregation for the doctrine of the faith,

00:22:21.240 the old holy office. Cardinal Pell wasn't himself a theologian. His area was in church history.

00:22:29.140 And so it was a most unusual thing for him to have been called to serve as a consulter to the to the CDF.

00:22:37.500 It was there that obviously he developed a rapport with the then prefect, Cardinal Ratzinger.

00:22:43.900 Pell really made his biggest contributions as an auxiliary bishop upon the publication of two papal encyclicals,

00:22:51.840 Veritatis Splendor, and another one in English called The Gospel of Life.

00:22:56.420 It was then that he really was brought to the attention of John Paul II.

00:23:01.740 And I think it was for that reason that he was nominated to be Archbishop of Melbourne

00:23:06.180 when his predecessor was forced to retire early.

00:23:11.000 And so I think that's really what launched his eminence into the theological sphere.

00:23:17.660 And therefore, he had a great working relationship with Pope Benedict of happy memory.

00:23:23.700 One of the things that was interesting about Cardinal Pell was that he was one of the few cardinals

00:23:29.060 in this new advisory capacity to Pope Francis when Pope Francis came on the scene.

00:23:36.280 How did that happen? And where did it play out?

00:23:39.000 Just a quick note before we return, if you would like to stay up to date on LifeSite's coverage

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00:23:58.200 please consider making a one-time or monthly donation at give.lifesitenews.com.

00:24:03.660 And now, back to the video.

00:24:05.060 His eminence was a well-known administrator.

00:24:09.120 There's always been a role for Australians in Rome where concerns about corruption existed.

00:24:15.680 In fact, the Australian Marist fathers were always put in charge of distributing tickets

00:24:22.900 for big papal events because they were thought to be the only nationals who could be trusted 0.97

00:24:28.240 not to engage in any nepotism.

00:24:30.400 So Australians had been known for a lack of corruption, and so it was very fitting then 1.00

00:24:36.820 that an Australian would be put in charge of this role of investigating Vatican finances.

00:24:41.700 It just turned into a far heavier burden than his eminence expected.

00:24:46.460 He found far more maladministration and indeed corruption than anyone expected.

00:24:53.300 And his work in rooting that out was sadly short-lived, and he was certainly hemmed in at every turn

00:25:03.720 by many of the Italian authorities within the church.

00:25:11.340 Obviously, his nemesis in recent years is Cardinal Betu, who has said some most ungracious things

00:25:19.620 about Cardinal Pell just in the past 24 hours.

00:25:23.880 As I said earlier, it's not appropriate for Christians to speak ill of the dead,

00:25:28.420 but for another cardinal, a brother cardinal, to be doing that in the past 24 hours,

00:25:33.920 I think reflects more on Cardinal Betuda than it does on Cardinal Pell.

00:25:41.080 Now, this is very interesting because Cardinal Pell discovered and made public

00:25:48.080 some of the most disturbing aspects, at least in modern history, that we've ever heard of.

00:25:54.380 Findings of a billion dollars unaccounted for and things like that, those are massive things

00:26:03.060 that are going to upset the apple cart, as many would say here.

00:26:07.280 And given the history of the Vatican finances, the corruption, the Vatican Bank,

00:26:14.100 the ending up of people dead because of their involvements with that,

00:26:19.180 that sounds kind of crazy, but yet we have that in history.

00:26:24.380 You have right now the case of Libero Malone, who was charged and so on,

00:26:30.400 and now he's going to do a countersuit.

00:26:32.660 So Cardinal Pell got dumped right in the middle of that

00:26:35.740 and then had the oddest thing go on with what happened in Australia and then ends up dead.

00:26:42.520 I mean, obviously, people are going to start thinking things and saying things,

00:26:47.820 but he was wrapped up in all of this, but seemingly unaware.

00:26:54.420 I mean, he just kept doing his work as he felt he should be doing his work with honesty and upfront

00:26:59.600 and trust of the system, when probably many people told him, I don't think it's going to go down that way.

00:27:06.840 But what's your take on all that?

00:27:10.920 In choosing a pope from far-flung Argentina, I think the previous conclave had hoped

00:27:18.300 there would be something of an outsider's influence,

00:27:23.940 that Archbishop Bergoglio would become a fresh reformer and break through

00:27:31.120 a lot of the intransigence that had built up, like detritus within the Vatican.

00:27:37.660 Unfortunately, that hasn't happened at all, and plenty of evidence is now emerging

00:27:43.660 that the institutional corruption, specifically with reference to finance,

00:27:50.100 is in no better a situation.

00:27:52.760 So the good governance mechanisms that Cardinal Pell tried to introduce

00:27:56.900 have been stymied at every turn.

00:27:59.060 Of course, alarmingly, multi-million dollar tranches of money were transferred

00:28:05.100 from the Vatican accounts to an obscure company in Melbourne,

00:28:09.940 where Cardinal Pell was prosecuted on trumped-up charges,

00:28:15.880 and yet they cannot be accounted for.

00:28:18.780 Now, I run a business.

00:28:21.320 Every dollar can be accounted for, and that's a private company.

00:28:24.620 How much more so should it be the case that multi-million dollar transfers to this day

00:28:31.600 unexplained that coincided with the pressing of charges against Cardinal Pell cannot be accounted for?

00:28:39.940 That in itself is alarming if the Holy See wants to rebuild its coffers.

00:28:45.280 I don't quite understand how any of this helps a poor church being for the poor,

00:28:52.200 as Pope Francis has described it.

00:28:54.280 If at the end of the day, people aren't going to be donating to Peter's pens,

00:29:00.380 I don't see how that can possibly serve the important work of the Vatican supporting the needy.

00:29:07.520 We need transparency.

00:29:08.520 We need to know where those multi-million dollar transfers ended up,

00:29:12.860 and we need to know it now.

00:29:14.260 There's an urgency to these things that, sadly, the Cardinal's death only further goes to highlight.

00:29:23.500 We need someone like George Pell in the Vatican now more than ever.

00:29:27.620 This was the heart of rumors that were very well placed all over Rome at the time of Cardinal Pell's being taken down in Australia,

00:29:41.240 in the most unbelievable way, a way that really does disservice to this justice system all around the world,

00:29:49.920 coming, sadly, from Australia.

00:29:51.760 But it was a travesty, and yet there's that bit of evidence that exists, still unexplained,

00:30:00.600 of Vatican transfers, unexplained in the millions.

00:30:05.560 And so there was this rumor, and as I said, from some very high-ranking people who don't want to be named,

00:30:11.760 but nonetheless, who's had a suspicion of foul play with regard to all of this.

00:30:17.780 And it's not known yet, but as you said, it is for journalists, and God willing, with the help that they need, to uncover that.

00:30:25.400 Well, it was the very first Australian journalist who had the opportunity to interview the Cardinal

00:30:30.920 days after his release from prison, who raised this topic of the transfers to an obscure Australian company

00:30:41.220 that we're yet to find, be given an explanation for.

00:30:46.660 And his eminence ran with that topic, and so clearly there's something to it that needs examining.

00:30:54.140 At the same time, his eminence had obviously just spent years of his life enduring accusations that didn't have evidence,

00:31:03.240 and so he very magnanimously said, although he has concerns and suspicions and answers need to be given,

00:31:10.980 he's not going to come to any firm conclusions without that evidence.

00:31:14.920 So it's now our job to demand more than ever that those questions be answered.

00:31:21.240 Was there any interference from Rome in the process that led to this bizarre turn of events?

00:31:31.960 And it's also very concerning to remember how few people ever came out and said a word in defence of the Cardinal

00:31:42.260 at the time that charges were first brought, and in fact, during the entirety of his trial, conviction and incarceration,

00:31:53.420 very, very few people here in Australia or globally came out to say a word in his defence.

00:31:58.640 There was a real climate of fear.

00:32:00.820 Now, you would think and understand that that could be the case in Melbourne,

00:32:05.100 where the institutions of state were being encouraged in this diabolical persecution.

00:32:12.800 But the fact that that climate of fear was worldwide, the fact that that climate of fear

00:32:17.740 meant that the Pope had to sneak a letter in to the prison without the papal letterhead,

00:32:27.860 it's all just a little bit too concerning to let go.

00:32:33.300 So I do hope that in the course of the months and years ahead, investigative journalists and people with contacts in Rome and here in Australia

00:32:43.240 will explore this matter more deeply because the truth needs to out and it needs to out sooner rather than later.

00:32:51.940 This kind of thing is not out of the question, unfortunately.

00:32:56.220 But then that brings another question, of course, because we saw his commentary on Pope Benedict just the other day.

00:33:05.360 I was actually in touch with the cardinal to try and arrange for an interview while I was there covering the funeral of Pope Benedict.

00:33:11.200 He got back to me by email saying that he was going to a charismatic conference.

00:33:16.080 But then to just unbelievably shockingly learn that he had passed away, it was almost too much to take.

00:33:23.540 And we wondered at first when I first thought, is it fake news or what is that?

00:33:27.280 But then also a natural kind of suspicion because, yeah, he was out of jail.

00:33:34.260 That didn't work. Perhaps something more nefarious.

00:33:36.640 And I know that sounds conspiratorial and whatever else, but the circumstances of the death also don't help.

00:33:43.760 He came through the hip replacement surgery and was fine and was talking to the anesthetist and then has a cardiac arrest.

00:33:51.540 So I don't know if you thought anything of that, but it just, it struck so hard and with such confusion right after his being let go from incarceration.

00:34:03.380 It was a sad story, a hard story to hear.

00:34:06.140 I met briefly last night with the current Archbishop of Sydney at the conclusion of a Requiem Mass for Pope Benedict.

00:34:15.420 And Archbishop Fisher said that while he was in Rome last week for Pope Benedict's funeral, he met with Cardinal Pell three times and described him as having never been in better form.

00:34:30.380 He was enjoying life.

00:34:32.440 He was in very good form.

00:34:33.620 And so Archbishop Fisher didn't see this coming.

00:34:40.360 But at the same time, we need to bear in mind that one of the great criticisms that were made of the Cardinal, his return to Australia,

00:34:49.240 was that he was somehow trying to use his heart condition as a reason for not attending the Royal Commission of Inquiry some years back.

00:34:57.740 And they said, oh, he doesn't really have a heart condition, when in fact, he ended up against doctor's orders voluntarily coming back to Australia to face trial, knowing that he had a heart condition.

00:35:11.800 And so certainly I'm sure that was part of the picture as he emerged from his second hip replacement operation two days ago to die in his doctor's arms.

00:35:23.400 It's shocking also and hard at a time when among the princes of the Church, among the Cardinals, there are so very few enunciating the truth of Jesus Christ anymore.

00:35:37.940 There's so very few, I mean very, very few, who dare to speak in what historians that I know have called the greatest crisis in the Church in her entire history.

00:35:52.560 Cardinal Pell deserves credit for doing nothing more than sticking to his job description.

00:35:58.960 As a bishop, he would preach, he would sanctify, he would govern.

00:36:05.800 That's the job description of an auxiliary bishop.

00:36:09.480 But as a cardinal, his job was also to not just promote and transmit the deposit of faith, but to defend it.

00:36:18.760 And that there would be a single cardinal who would not be in overdrive attempting to defend the deposit of faith from constant attacks within the heart of the Church is alarming.

00:36:33.580 It means that they're not aware of their basic job description.

00:36:38.320 Cardinal Pell deserves to be commended and eulogized in death simply for sticking to his job description.

00:36:45.400 Is it that much to ask that the bishops of the Church merely do their job?

00:36:51.920 As an employer, I expect my staff to read their job description once in a while, and I expect the priests of our Church to keep the promises that they made on the day of their ordination.

00:37:04.240 The fact that he stands out head and shoulders above the Sacred College is simply because he was doing his job.

00:37:12.320 That's a good way of describing him standing head and shoulders above everyone else.

00:37:17.360 I think a lot of people, well, let's let you explain to them.

00:37:20.540 Cardinal Pell has an interesting history, also for being a big man.

00:37:25.080 What's his history there?

00:37:26.480 George Pell was the son of a Protestant publican in the Australian rural backwater of Ballarat.

00:37:33.760 And he went on to become a prince of the Catholic Church in Rome.

00:37:40.620 From any perspective, we're witnessing the death of a man who will be written into not just church history, not just Australian history, but he will be forever a most remarkable figure of all human history.

00:37:56.160 Obviously, his time in prison only adds to the interest.

00:38:01.720 But he also, his life covers an enormous transition in the life of the Catholic Church.

00:38:09.580 When he entered Corpus Christi Seminary, where I actually studied myself under Cardinal Pell for five years, the same seminary generations later, the church was at its very height.

00:38:23.280 Religious life in Australia was booming.

00:38:27.480 Seminaries were full.

00:38:29.780 Even when I as a child would go to my local country church, we would be standing shoulder to shoulder with our co-religionists. 0.86

00:38:37.920 The church in Australia has been in freefall since the Second Vatican Council.

00:38:43.880 It continues to be in freefall.

00:38:47.920 So his life is certainly the end of an era.

00:38:51.080 He was a great builder.

00:38:54.000 It's the end of an era of great Catholic institutions, some of which he built.

00:38:59.620 But like all great empires, sometimes the greatest monuments are built at the very end of an era.

00:39:07.380 And so with his death, I think the institutional church as we knew it in Australia is also at an end.

00:39:14.660 And I think it's important that Catholics realise that we really do need to rebuild from the ground up. 0.91

00:39:22.380 And any hankering for the church that we've experienced in the past 50 years will not help.

00:39:30.500 The formula for church life that's been applied in the past 50 years is a failed formula.

00:39:38.300 It's time now for Catholics to rebuild from the ground up. 1.00

00:39:43.400 So, yes, this is an end of an era which Cardinal Pell's life was certainly a curious and crowning contribution towards.

00:39:51.200 But with his death, like the death of Pope Benedict, like the death of other great global figures, Elizabeth II, the continuity figures are now gone.

00:40:01.140 The disruption is now complete and the work of rebuilding from very basic Christian foundations must now begin. 0.96

00:40:11.860 What are your final thoughts for us on George Cardinal Pell?

00:40:16.200 Also, what inspiration can you take for that very rebuilding of the church, really starting with laity, but from Cardinal Pell?

00:40:24.400 I'm the Secretary of Right to Light here in Australia.

00:40:26.860 Cardinal Pell was an implacable supporter of Right to Life and the pro-life movement here in Australia.

00:40:37.220 I think if the church is going to be true to itself, it has to look very closely at the pro-life movement as one of the stronger aspects of its mission for evangelisation.

00:40:52.700 So, I think his legacy in support of the pro-life movement is important, given that the Christian religion began in the womb of a vulnerable young woman.

00:41:05.740 So, I think the cardinal's strong pro-life focus, I mentioned earlier in this interview, the documents he wrote in the early 1990s in support of John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae, his encyclical on the gospel of life, will be perhaps his most important contribution.

00:41:27.160 So, the pro-life movement, pro-life Catholics, will be a large part of that rebuilding, simply because our concern goes back to the very inception of our religion in the incarnation of our Lord in the womb of a vulnerable young woman.

00:41:45.360 So, I think that will be his lasting legacy, and I think that's also a prophetic sign as to where the church will reform and refashion, and I think the renewal of the church is to be found very much in the heart of the Catholic and Christian pro-life movement.

00:42:06.720 John McCauley, thank you so much for being with us.

00:42:08.760 For your work, and for your vital apostolate, and for your interest in our Australian cardinal, who we love much and now more, and I can't thank you enough.

00:42:18.080 God bless you, and God bless all of you. We'll see you next time.

00:42:38.760 Life, Family, Faith, and Freedom News.

00:42:40.800 Thanks for watching, and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - January 17, 2023

Death of a Prince： Remembering Cardinal George Pell

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