Two great Cardinals leave in quick succession

As Sydney-siders prepare to farewell their beloved Cardinal, so too are the people of Cologne preparing to farewell theirs.  Joachim Cardinal Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, is being permitted to retire at the age of 80.  Cologne, like Sydney, is regarded as a bastion of orthodoxy, thanks to Meisner's fearless leadership.

News articles can be read in:

• the New York Times; 
• La Stampa; and 
• the Associated Press.  

Readers of this blog may have seen His Eminence in some of the videos of Cologne Cathedral I have posted from time to time - he was clearly of the Benedict school of thought in matters liturgical, intoning the Gloria and Credo as all celebrants should do, and on at least in occasion I detected a sung Latin Confiteor at Kölner Dom.  

Wishing Cardinal Pell all the very best as the Vatican Treasurer (or Chancellor of the Exchequer for British readers), and Cardinal Meisner in his retirement.