Top Asian News 4:55 a.m. GMT

Pell mourned at Sydney cathedral, police try to stop protest

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Mourners paid their respects to former Vatican Cardinal George Pell in a Sydney cathedral Wednesday as police asked a court to stop a protest at the funeral of a polarizing church leader who was once the most senior Roman Catholic convicted of sex abuse. Pell, who was once the third-highest-ranking cleric in the Vatican and spent more than a year in prison before his child abuse convictions were overturned in 2020, died in Rome on Jan. 10 at age 81. Pell became notorious as the most senior Catholic to be convicted in the clergy abuse scandal that rocked the church globally.