Pope St. John Paul II

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Cardinal George Pell had no way to know that he was preaching his final sermon -- ever

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Cardinal George Pell had no way to know that he was preaching his final sermon -- ever

Cardinal George Pell had no way to know, as he rose to preach during a spiritual retreat in southern Italy, that this was his last sermon -- opening with the biblical cry, "Repent, because the Kingdom of God is near."

Catholics should stay focused on truths proclaimed during the reigns of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, he said, at the Shrine of St. Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo.

These popes "were missionaries of the truth. We don't build the truth. We don't have the ability to change the truth. We can only acknowledge the truth, and sometimes the truth isn't all that pretty. Sometimes the truth is disconcerting, difficult," said Pell, three days before his death on January 10, after routine hip surgery.

"These two Popes did not affirm that the teaching of Jesus was conditioned by the time, by the Roman Empire, by the pagans. They did not claim that the essential and central teaching should be updated, radically changed. They didn't say: 'We don't know what Jesus said because there were no tape recorders.' … As for them, and also for us, Jesus remains the way, the truth and the life."

On this day, the burly 6-foot-4 cardinal faced a gathering of Catholic charismatics, not an audience of Vatican power brokers. Nevertheless, this final sermon -- translated from Italian by Inside the Vatican magazine -- touched on themes in his recent writings that fueled raging debates about Pope Francis and the modernization of Catholic doctrines and worship.

In that sermon, Cardinal Pell offered only one nod to Pope Francis, while noting the potential for future popes from Africa, Asia and the Global South. "Today we have a Pope from South America -- praiseworthy and good," he said.

But after Pell's death, Italian journalist Sandro Magister revealed that the Australian cardinal -- using the pseudonym "Demos" -- had written a fierce March memo circulated to members of the College of Cardinals focusing on issues that loom over the next conclave to select a pope.

The Francis pontificate has been "a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe," this memo claimed.

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LGBTQ Catholic voices rising as Vatican's Synod on Synodality gains momentum

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LGBTQ Catholic voices rising as Vatican's Synod on Synodality gains momentum

The "Chain of Discipleship" image showed five Catholics celebrating at a church, including a woman in priest's vestments and a person in a rainbow-letters "pride" shirt who is shouting, "We are the young people of the future and the future is now."

This art from the Philadelphia Catholic Higher Education Synod rocked Catholic social media -- especially when it appeared on the Synod of Bishops Facebook page, linked to the ongoing Synod on Synodality that began in 2021.

Catholics at the local, regional and national levels are sending the Vatican input about the church's future. A North Carolina parish submitted testimony from "Matthew (not his real name)," who had been recognized as his Catholic high school's most popular teacher. While "hiding his homosexuality," he married "his partner elsewhere."

"They decide to foster, love and adopt young children internationally," said this report. "Matthew's greatest sadness is that he has to hide his sexuality in order to keep his job in a church institution and that he does not feel welcome in the Catholic Church precisely because of his sexuality which he considers God-given, and this despite his attempt to love the poor and destitute through his pro-life decision to adopt."

Case studies of this kind recently led Belgian bishops to approve a document -- "On Pastoral Closeness to Homosexual People" (.pdf here) -- containing a rite for priests blessing same-sex couples. The bishops appointed a gay layman as inter-diocesan coordinator for LGBTQ care in a land in which 3.6% of baptized Catholics attend Mass on an average Sunday.

Meanwhile, it's important that a Vatican working document includes the term LGBTQ and even LGBTQIA in discussions of topics once considered forbidden, said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay-rights network pushed aside during the Pope St. John Paul II era.