Father Michael Kong, 39, met Pell in 2021. He told CNA he saw the cardinal about once a month or so together with other Australian priests. Pell also attended functions at the Australian embassy.
Kong described Pell as a pastor, father, and friend.
“He was very friendly and he always asked me how I was doing,” the priest said. “He always asked me about my opinion on certain issues and media and things.”
The Melbourne priest is studying Church communications at Rome’s University of the Holy Cross.
He said for the Australian priests in Rome, Pell was “a good pastor, a good shepherd, a spiritual father, or even a grandfather.”
Kong said the cardinal was always kind to the random people who would approach him on the street to say hello.
“I witnessed that he was a man of strong faith in God, of course,” he said, adding that Pell had a “gentle and humorous manner” with people.
In May 2021, Pell led a eucharistic procession at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, known as the Angelicum.
Speaking to EWTN News, Pell said: “I’m very pleased to be here. I gather it’s a student initiative, led by students, a wonderful example of faith in practice.”
“I think it’s important after COVID to get back to a regular church routine of prayer and worship,” he continued. “I’m not sure in the long run that COVID will change too much, but it might have given another excuse for us to get a little bit slack, a little bit relaxed, in our approach to our prayer and worship, and we’ve got to battle against that.”
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Pell also had a good relationship with journalists and media. He collaborated with EWTN on multiple occasions, including taped and live interviews the week of the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, just a couple of weeks before his own sudden passing from a cardiac arrest.
“What I knew about him was, I think, what many Catholics knew about him, which was really the high-profile case,” Colm Flynn, a journalist working with EWTN, told CNA.
From 2020 until this month, Flynn interviewed Pell about five times, for both TV and radio.
Flynn said he thought the cardinal would be reluctant to do media interviews after his return to Rome. But it only took a bit of time to build up the trust of Pell and his secretary.
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