At his Vatican funeral Saturday, the late Cardinal George Pell was praised for his “greatness of intellect and heart,” and, in an allusion to his conviction followed by eventual exoneration on sexual abuse charges in his native Australia, for bearing an “unjust and painful condemnation” with “dignity and interior peace.”
Pope Benedict XVI’s considerable influence will be seen and felt for decades after his passing, particularly in the leadership of the Catholic Church in the United States.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was buried on Jan. 5 in the Vatican Grottoes, a space located beneath St. Peter’s Basilica that serves as the final resting place of numerous popes and historical figures.
The April 2008 visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the U.S., which included a three-day trip to New York, turned out to be his only journey to this country as pontiff. But according to people who remember it, the visit, while brief, left a lasting impression.
In reaction to the surprise death of Cardinal George Pell of Australia on Jan. 10, it’s likely that a good deal of media attention will focus on the impact of the conservative wing of the Catholic Church, coming as it does hard on the heels of the recent passing of Pope Benedict XVI.
In what was one of his last on-the-record interviews, Australian Cardinal George Pell, former prefect of the Secretary for the Economy, told OSV News that with the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church lost “a wonderful man. A very kind man.”
One of the Catholic Church’s most towering figures, Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was acquitted of child sexual abuse and was once a top aide in Pope Francis’ financial reform efforts, died late Tuesday in Rome due to a complication after a routine surgery, sources say.
Nearly 40 years after the disappearance of 15-year-old Italian girl Emanuela Orlandi, the Vatican’s tribunal has reopened the case, which received a fresh wave of attention after being featured in a Netflix documentary last year.
Father Jacques Yaro Zerbo, 67, Malian-born Catholic priest, was laid to rest Jan. 5 at a Catholic cemetery in Tionkuy, 150 miles west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
Ukraine’s Catholic military chaplains will eventually be “catalysts for the rebuilding” of their war-torn nation, said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose three days in Ukraine included at times sheltering with Ukrainians as Russian missiles relentlessly rained down on civilian centers.
