Prominent Australians have paid tribute to Cardinal George Pell as local political leaders ruled out the possibility of a state funeral.
While former prime ministers of the country hailed Pell as a “great son” of Australia and an important figure in the nation’s intellectual and cultural life, the premiers of two Australian states — New South Wales and Victoria — said they would not be granting state funeral honours to Pell following the cardinal’s death in Rome on Jan. 10 at the age of 81.
In Victoria — which encompasses Melbourne, whose archdiocese Pell led from 1996 to 2001 — Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed that there would be no state memorial service and linked his announcement to the clerical abuse scandals of recent decades.
“I couldn’t think of anything that would be more distressing for victim-survivors than that,” he said Jan. 12, adding that he was unlikely to attend the cardinal’s memorial.
Some sections of Australian media and society have continued to link Pell’s legacy to his 2017 trial on charges of sexual abuse, despite the High Court acquitting him of all charges in 2020, after the cardinal had spent more than 400 days in solitary confinement.