Death of a Prince： Remembering Cardinal George Pell
Summary
Cardinal George Cardinal Pell was a man persecuted for the faith by the modernist horde. Most famously, he was falsely convicted of sexual abuse of minors, only to be exonerated after serving a year in solitary confinement. And then he was unanimously exonerated. But what did this heroic man of God say after his release?
Transcript
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
00:00:36.340
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,
00:03:15.320
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,
00:13:54.780
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
00:20:36.900
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
00:20:59.460
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
00:21:43.000
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
00:23:45.780
of the latest life, family, and culture news, subscribe to one of our many newsletters
00:23:53.420
And if you'd like to help us bring our truth-telling coverage to millions around the world,
00:23:58.200
please consider making a one-time or monthly donation at give.lifesitenews.com.
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
00:24:30.400
So Australians had been known for a lack of corruption, and so it was very fitting then
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
00:25:23.880
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,
00:26:32.660
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.
00:27:10.920
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,
00:27:52.760
So the good governance mechanisms that Cardinal Pell tried to introduce
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,
00:28:21.320
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,
00:28:54.280
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.
00:29:08.520
We need to know where those multi-million dollar transfers ended up,
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,
00:29:51.760
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.
00:32:00.820
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.
00:34:06.140
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.
00:34:33.620
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.
00:37:26.480
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.
00:38:29.780
Even when I as a child would go to my local country church, we would be standing shoulder to shoulder with our co-religionists.
00:38:37.920
The church in Australia has been in freefall since the Second Vatican Council.
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.
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.
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.
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.