SYDNEY (LifeSiteNews) — LGBT activists gathered outside of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, Australia, during Cardinal George Pell’s funeral on Thursday to express their hatred for the recently deceased prelate.
Footage of the event captured by Sky News Australia showed a large gathering of a “couple hundred” protesters holding numerous rainbow-colored flags and mean-spirited signs while repetitiously chanting “George Pell, burn in hell!”
One protester was shown holding a threatening sign that read, “Death to all who stand in the way of freedom for queer people.”
Supporters and mourners of Pell, in contrast, could be seen behind barriers holding up rosaries and other religious items.
According to a Sky News reporter who was on the ground, the pro-sodomy protesters ended up “clashing with supporters of the Catholic Church” outside the cathedral, leading to the arrest of “at least two men.”
The protest was organized by a group called Community Action for Rainbow Rights, and was advertised on social media under the title, “Pell go to Hell! LGBTI protest at George Pell’s funeral.”
Pell, who died on January 10 at age 81 following routine hip surgery, was well-known in his native Australia for his defense of the Catholic Church’s condemnation of sodomy, abortion, and same-sex “marriage.”
Pell was also well-known on an international level for having spent over a year in prison after being convicted of charges related to child sexual abuse – a conviction that was ultimately overturned and of which many speculate was part of a plot by nefarious actors in Rome to stop his attempts at financial reforms in the Vatican.
The pro-LGBT group had explained prior to the protest that their frustration with Pell was rooted in his being a “key figure of right-wing conservativism in Australian society.”
The group mentioned that Pell had “repeatedly stated” that homosexual activity is a “greater health hazard than smoking,” and that in accordance with unchangeable Catholic teaching, consistently preached that both abortion and same-sex “marriage” are moral evils.
The group described Pell’s outspokenness against homosexual acts as hypocritical in light of the 2020 report released by the Australian government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which accused Pell of having obtained knowledge of child sex abuse at the hands of priests in the 1970s and 1980s, and failing to act in any meaningful capacity. Pell, on the other hand, had criticized the commission’s report, saying through a spokesperson shortly after its release that its “views are not supported by evidence.”
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