George Pell's memorial hijacked by protestors
The memorial service for Cardinal George Pell has ended with calls to the police, after protestors clashed outside St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney.
Australia's highest ranking Catholic was honoured in a service on Wednesday, when Pell supporters approached child abuse activists who were peacefully tying ribbons to fences at the cathedral.
Supporters of the previously convicted sex offender were reportedly shouting angrily at the silent protesters as evening prayer was wrapping up.
In recent days, a support group for clergy abuse survivors, Loud Fence, had been tying colourful ribbons as a symbol of solidarity.
But church security has repeatedly been cutting them down.
In another bold statement against the Cardinal, comedians from The Chaser attempted to gain entry into the memorial service as they carried a fake coffin filled with "evidence".
Comedian and The Chasers War on Everything star, Charles Firth, along with Chaser colleague, Lachlan Hodson, clashed with police on the steps of the Cathedral as they claimed they had "a whole lot of evidence to bury alongside him", saying it's what Pell "would've wanted".
As one guard tries to stop the comedian from taking a step further, Firth tells him, "Don't touch me, I'm not an altar boy".
"Wait a minute, is this an issue of consent? I don't understand, that's never worried you before," he said.
As security urge Firth and Hodson to move away, the comedian tells the guards that he'll take the fake coffin to another parish as that's "normally the way it works".
Cardinal Pell died in Rome in January after complications from hip surgery. He was 81.
Pell was widely seen as the right-hand man of Pope Francis and the third most powerful figure in the church, before he was arrested in Australia for historic child sex abuse crimes within the church.
The Cardinal was imprisoned in 2019 after he was found guilty of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s and spent just 12 months in Barwon Prison near Melbourne before the Australian High Court quashed his convictions following an appeal.
Despite being sentenced to six years in prison with a non-parole period of three years and eight months, there were no further trials and Pell walked free after more than 400 days in prison.
Image credits: Nine News / Reddit