When Australian Cardinal George Pell died unexpectedly of a heart attack following hip replacement surgery on Jan. 10, 2023, it came less than two weeks after the death of retired Pope Benedict XVI and only compounded the grief of those longing for a return to a more traditional brand of Catholicism.
A year later, those sentiments were still palpable at a Jan. 9 Requiem Mass for Pell here in Rome, celebrated by the former head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who recalled those disorienting days after the back-to-back deaths of Pell and the late pope.
Müller heralded the two churchmen as models of the “true faith” who are now “powerful advocates with the Father” at a time in the church where he said its current leaders are too willing to accommodate the “changing spirit of the times.”
Stock Image of Domus-Australia chapel in Rome.
The Mass, celebrated at the Domus Australia — a guesthouse in Rome for Australian visitors, whose creation was spearheaded by Pell and officially opened by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 — included an exquisite scola, some 50 lay attendees and six cardinals, including traditionalist U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke.
Pell and Müller weren’t just neighbors at their Vatican apartments in the Piazza della Città Leonina, but also reliable ideological allies. In his final article, Pell warned that Pope Francis’ emphasis on synodality — an effort to decentralize the Catholic Church and better include all its members — had become a “toxic nightmare.” Similarly, Müller has described it as a “hostile takeover” of the church.
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Thanks to National Catholic Reporter and Christopher White.
