‘Buffer zone’ in place for Cardinal Pell’s funeral
Jack Gramenz, Kat Wong and Duncan Murray |
Mourners and protesters will gather separately in Sydney to mark the controversial life and times of Cardinal George Pell.
The former Catholic archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, who remains divisive in death, will finally be laid to rest at St Mary’s Cathedral on Thursday as protesters rally nearby.
The protest got the go-ahead late on Wednesday after Police Commissioner Karen Webb filed an 11th hour application in the NSW Supreme Court to block the planned action by LGBTQI group Community Action for Rainbow Rights.
A deal was reached after protest organisers agreed not to march on College Street directly next to the cathedral.
Instead, they will be allowed to protest on the other side of the road within earshot of mourners.
“We’re now able to march up, right opposite the church and have our voices heard,” protest organiser Kim Stern said.
NSW Premier and fellow Catholic Dominic Perrottet will not attend the requiem mass for the 81-year-old but is urging people to behave respectfully.
“I would say to everybody across our state today it’s a time to come together and show respect,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
Finance Minister Damien Tudehope will attend the service as a representative of the premier.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Martin Fileman said it was not the intention of NSW Police to prevent protest activity outside Cardinal Pell’s funeral.
He said having a “buffer zone” along College Street mitigated the risk of clashes between protesters and the thousands of mourners expected to attend.
“People in NSW have the right to protest,” Mr Fileman said.
“We ask that people attending on both sides, that they’re respectful of each other and that they comply with police directions.”
Cardinal Pell died last month and was given a traditional funeral at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
A procession of about 100 people accompanied the controversial cardinal’s body on Wednesday as it was transferred by hearse along Sydney’s College Street to the cathedral, where he is lying in state.
Two masses were held at the cathedral on Wednesday, followed by an evening vigil.
Thousands of mourners are expected to attend the requiem mass before the cardinal is buried in a private ceremony in the cathedral crypt.
Survivors of clerical abuse and their supporters surrounded the cathedral in a silent protest on Wednesday morning, attaching ribbons in a rainbow of colours to the fence.
The ribbons were removed by security guards before being replaced.
Paul Auchettl, whose late brother was a victim of clerical abuse by a priest under the leadership of Cardinal Pell in Ballarat during the 1970s, spent the morning tying ribbons to the church.
“Tying a ribbon becomes a sacred act,” he told AAP.
“What you’re doing is trying to honour someone who might not be here anymore or who’s struggling.”
Cardinal Pell was the Vatican’s top finance minister before leaving Rome in 2017 to stand trial in Melbourne for child sexual abuse offences.
He was convicted the following year of molesting two teenage choirboys in the sacristy of Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral while archbishop in 1996.
Cardinal Pell maintained his innocence and in 2020 his convictions were quashed by the High Court.
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