(LifeSiteNews) — On January 9, Cardinal Gerhard Müller celebrated the Holy Mass of Remembrance in the St. Peter Chanel Chapel of the Domus Australia guesthouse in Rome for Cardinal George Pell, who died last year on January 10 at aged 81.
In his sermon (see full text below), Müller reminded us of the sudden and unexpected death of the Australian prelate, just ten days after the death of Pope Benedict XVI.
Comparing these two men, the German cardinal called them “role models of the true faith” and “powerful advocates with the Father.” “In the midst of the current battle for the ‘truth of the Gospel’ (Gal 2:14), as Paul boldly said to Peter’s face, the pilgrim Church has lost two outstanding representatives of its sound apostolic doctrine.”
Recapturing Pell’s life, Müller pointed out that in spite of Pell’s “athletic abilities and his high intellectual talent, which emerged during his school education,” the Australian shunned “a brilliant career in the world” and chose “to follow Christ’s call to the priestly service.”
The German prelate went on to describe Pell’s academic study of the early Church’s teachings on authority, reminding us that “the teaching of the apostles can neither be expanded speculatively nor adapted in liturgical and pastoral practice to the changing spirit of the times nor sacrificed to the political and diplomatic constraints of church politics.” Later, as Prefect of the Vatican’s Economic Council, Pell was famously to be part of the resistance of bishops during the two synods on the family which reacted to the first attempts under Pope Francis’ pontificate to soften the Church’s teachings on homosexuality and marriage.
Müller honored Pell for his role during the synods, stating: “Personally, I remember very well his commitment to marriage and family in the spirit of Christ’s teachings—against their relativization by secularist-minded participants in the synod on this topic.” For the German cardinal, there is no doubt that Pell’s later unjust imprisonment in solitary confinement in Australia was due to the fact that “he was relentlessly pursued by a bloodthirsty mob and made himself a victim of justice by anti-Catholic agitators in the media and in the police apparatus.” Pell, according to Mueller, was a “confessor,” a man willing to die for the Catholic faith, but was spared of that martyrdom by Divine Providence.
“With his three-volume Prison Journal (2019-2021),” Müller expounded, “he has given us a great testimony of Christian patience in the midst of unjust suffering that, according to patristic standards, would have placed him, even during his lifetime, among the ranks of the confessors who immediately follow the martyrs in the communio sanctorum.”
Below is the full text of the sermon given by Müller on the 1st anniversary of Cardinal George Pell’s death
Just 10 days after the death of Pope Benedict on New Year’s Eve 2022, we were shocked by the news that Cardinal Pell, too, had preceded us into the house of the Heavenly Father. In the midst of the current battle for the “truth of the Gospel” (Gal 2:14), as Paul boldly said to Peter’s face, the pilgrim church has lost two outstanding representatives of its sound apostolic doctrine. We grieve for them, but for those of us who do not think according to political categories; such as power and number of votes, but believe with St. Augustine, “that the Church advances safely on her pilgrimage between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God” (De civ. Dei 18.51,2), we know that Divine Providence has given us both Pope Benedict and Cardinal Pell as role models of the true faith, and as powerful advocates with the Father.
As billions and billions of people come and go over the course of generations, the lasting importance of any individual man—most of whom will soon be forgotten—may seem doubtful. Those doubts are easily dispelled when we examine God’s plan of salvation. God wants “all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth through the only mediator between God and men: the man Christ Jesus.” (cf. 1 Tim 2: 4f). As we look forward in the hope of eternal life to come, we know from the outset that “God chose us in Christ before the world was made, to be holy and faultless before him in love, marking us out for himself beforehand, to be adopted sons” (Ephesians 1:4). Theologically speaking, this means that we as creatures are not only determined by the contingency of our existence in the interplay of the finite world, but that our personhood is a parable of the A-seity of God. God constituted us in the subsistence of our immortal soul. He called us by our name so that we could be counted as children and friends of God and actually be so in nature and grace. This dignity given to us by God is crowned in that He has made us co-workers in his universal plan of salvation – cooperatores veritatis et gratiae. In doing so, He enables us to participate in the actualisation of His kingdom in this world, and in the hearts of people. This is achieved through the specific Grace given to each one of us according to the measure God has assigned to us (cf. 1 Peter 4:10).
One of these beloved sons whom God has called by his name is our brother George Pell. Born into a Christian family on June 8, 1941, he grew up in the Australian state of Victoria. With his athletic abilities and his high intellectual talent, which emerged during his school education, a brilliant career in the world would have been open to him. But he decided to follow Christ’s call to the priestly service, which requires the dedication and willingness to sacrifice of the good shepherd far beyond a mere philanthropic spirit. He crowned his studies at the world-famous Oxford, of which he was always very proud, with a dissertation. Its title is: “The exercise of the Authority in early Christianity from about 170 to 270”. The young Fr Pell’s research included Irenaeus of Lyons, whom Pope Francis has declared to be a Doctor Ecclesiae. This greatest theologian of the 2nd century established the valid hermeneutics of the Catholic faith against the manifold forms of Gnosticism and other heresies for all time, teaching that the one Revelation of God in Christ has been handed down to us completely and unchangeably in the Church through Holy Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the normative witness of the bishops in the Apostolic Succession. The teaching of the apostles can neither be expanded speculatively nor adapted in liturgical and pastoral practice to the changing spirit of the times nor sacrificed to the political and diplomatic constraints of church politics.
With great boldness before the thrones of power and money, not to mention the arrogance of self-proclaimed but pseudo-intellectuals, Cardinal Pell faithfully, and selflessly, served the Church in Australia as a priest, and then as Bishop of Melbourne and Sydney. And finally, on October 21, 2003, John Paul II created him Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. He was given special responsibility in the Roman Curia by Pope Francis, who appointed him to the newly created Council of Cardinals and appointed him Prefect of the Vatican’s Economic Council. Personally, I remember very well his commitment to marriage and family in the spirit of Christ’s teachings—against their relativization by secularist-minded participants in the synod on this topic.
But the Enemy does not sleep. In the case of his faithful servant George Pell, Jesus’ words were proved shockingly true: “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you… They will do all this to you for my name’s sake; for they do not know him who sent me” (John 15:20f). While Archbishop George Pell cared for victims of sexual abuse in an exemplary and compassionate manner during his time in Australia, he was relentlessly pursued by a bloodthirsty mob and made himself a victim of justice by anti-Catholic agitators in the media and in the police apparatus. He was held in solitary confinement for 404 days, a wrongfully convicted man, until he was finally released from prison by the High Court of Australia in a historic vote of 7 to 0.
With his three-volume Prison Journal (2019-2021) he has given us a great testimony of Christian patience in the midst of unjust suffering that, according to patristic standards, would have placed him, even during his lifetime, among the ranks of the confessors who immediately follow the martyrs in the communio sanctorum . This work is, to our mind, of comparable literary value to the work of Boethius, De consolatione philosophie, which “the last Roman and first Scholastic” wrote in the dungeon of the Gothic king Theodoric. I also think of the Protestant pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer with his letters from prison by the atheist German Nazi government. The persecution suffered by Cardinal Pell is the same persecution of Christians that recurs throughout history in different guises.
If you are looking for consolation in the distress of our time and want to assure yourself of Christ’s word: “Do not be afraid, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), then, in addition to the prison diary, you should read George Pell’s last essay in the Festschrift for his friend and great Newman expert Ian Ker. Its significant and descriptive title is telling; “The suffering church in a suffering world.” Cardinal Pell’s article concludes autobiographically with a memory of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “who declared he was a pagan at the age of twelve, an agnostic at sixteen, became an Anglican at marriage, and was received into the Church in 1922 at the age of 48.”
And then Cardinal Pell continues: “In his best-known book Orthodoxy (1908), he writes of the ‘thrilling romance of orthodoxy’. For him, it is easy to be a heretic, easy to let the age have its head. To have fallen into ‘any of these open traps of error and exaggeration’ would indeed have been simple. ‘but to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.’ And finally Cardinal Pell himself says at the end of his life and work in the vineyard of the Lord: “After eighty years of Catholic living, this is my vision.”
On January 10, 2023, here in Rome, the Lord told His faithful servant George Pell: “Well done, good and trustworthy servant, come and join in your master’s happiness.” (Matt 25:23).
May he rest in peace.
