Australian police plan to ask a judge to ban gay rights protesters from demonstrating outside the funeral of Cardinal George Pell in Sydney on Thursday due to public safety concerns.
Pell, who was once considered the third-highest-ranking cleric in the Vatican and spent more than a year in prison before his child abuse convictions were overturned in 2020, died in Rome this month at age 81.
The staunchly conservative church leader will lie in St. Mary’s Cathedral starting Wednesday and will be buried in the cathedral after a funeral mass the next day.
The New South Wales Police Force said on Tuesday it had rejected a request by Sydney-based gay rights group Community Action for Rainbow Rights for permission to protest outside the cathedral on Thursday due to security concerns.
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He said Police Commissioner Karen Webb will ask the New South Wales Supreme Court on Wednesday to ban the demonstration.
“The NSW Police Force recognizes and supports the rights of individuals and groups to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, however the first priority is always the safety of the wider community,” police said. it’s a statement.
Pell was an outspoken and polarizing figure throughout his church career and remains divisive in his native Australia after his death.
Ribbons are tied to a fence at a protest at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on January 31, 2023. Police plan to ask a judge to ban protesters from demonstrating outside St Mary’s Cathedral during the funeral of the Cardinal George Pell on Thursday.
(Photo by Bianca De Marchi/AAP via AP)
The protest group has posted on social media of its intention to go ahead with what it calls its “Pell go to hell!” protest.
“We need everyone to come out and protest on Thursday. We cannot allow the police to get away with denying us our right to protest at this bigot’s funeral!” the group said.
As Archbishop of Melbourne and then Archbishop of Sydney, Pell repeatedly refused to give Communion to gay activists wearing rainbow-coloured sashes.
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“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and there are important consequences of this,” Pell told a congregation at St. Mary’s in 2002 after first denying communion to a gay activist in Sydney.
Pell was also a lightning rod for disagreements over whether the Catholic Church has been held accountable for the sexual abuse of minors in the past.
Pell and his supporters believed that he was the scapegoat for all the crimes of the Australian Catholic Church’s failed response to clergy sexual abuse.
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Protesters plan to tie ribbons in memory of child abuse victims on the cathedral fence on Wednesday as thousands of mourners are expected to gather to view the cardinal’s coffin.
“Tying ribbons on church fences has become a visual symbol of those who have suffered abuse at the hands of the church and a reminder that these crimes go largely unpunished,” the activists posted.
