Pope Francis has given a final blessing to George Pell as revelations of the late cardinal’s shock criticism of the pope cast a shadow over the funeral.

Pell’s body will soon make the long journey home to Australia to lay in its final resting place after the funeral mass in Rome.

His coffin will be returned to Australia to be buried in the crypt at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, where he served as archbishop.

Pell was farewelled on Saturday (local time) in St Peter’s Basilica — the same Vatican City church where Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s funeral was held last week.

The most senior Australian member of the Catholic Church, Pell died in Rome this week at the age of 81 from heart complications after hip surgery.

The funeral Mass itself was celebrated by an Italian cardinal, Giovanni Battista Re, in his role as Dean of the College of Cardinals, but a final blessing, delivered in Latin, was recited by Pope Francis.

Right after Pell’s death, it was revealed that the cardinal was the author of a memo that had been circulating for many months. In the memo, Pell had lamented that the current papacy as a “disaster” and a “catastrophe.”

Pell’s funeral came nine days after he attended former pope Benedict’s farewell, where the Archbishop of Sydney, Reverend Anthony Fisher, said he was “in sparkling form — witty and wise”.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Victoria’s Daniel Andrews ruled out holding state services for the former archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney.

Cardinal Pell was the Vatican’s top finance minister before leaving in 2017 to stand trial in Melbourne on child sexual abuse charges, for which he was jailed before his convictions were quashed.

A representative for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney said masses would be dedicated to the late Cardinal Pell on Sunday.

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