Ribbons Tied to Sydney Cathedral in Silent Protest Ahead of Cardinal Pell's Funeral

Hundreds of ribbons were tied to the railings outside St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on Wednesday, February 1, for victim-survivors of child sexual abuse ahead of Cardinal George Pell’s funeral on Thursday.

Footage by Twitter user @viiith_nerve via shows the colorful ribbons outside the cathedral, in an event organised by Ballarat man and abuse survivor Paul Auchettl.

According to the ABC, Auchettl was a witness at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and travelled to Rome with a group of survivors to witness Pell giving evidence to the Royal Commission in 2016.

The commission found Pell knew of allegations of offending in the Ballarat diocese as early as 1973, when he was Episcopal Vicar for Education, which Pell rejected.

Auchettl said the event was not a protest aimed at Pell, but a reminder of the church’s debt to victims and their families, according to the ABC.

Pell’s body was lying in state on Wednesday before his funeral mass on Thursday. A separate funeral mass was held for Pell in Rome after he died there in early January aged 81. Credit: @viiith_nerve via via Storyful

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