Cardinal

The Rise and Fall of George Pell

By: Louise Milligan

Narrated by: Louise Milligan, Thomas Keneally

Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

The book suppression has now lifted, and multi-award winning Cardinal is available for listeners for the first time, with new revelations and a foreword by Thomas Keneally.

Cardinal George Pell, Australia's most powerful Catholic, has been found guilty of five sexual crimes against children. He is the most senior Catholic figure in the world to be charged by police and convicted of child sex offences. The abuse involved choirboys at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral.

George Pell was a Ballarat boy who studied at Oxford and rose through the Catholic Church ranks to become adviser to Pope Francis and Vatican treasurer. He has been expelled from the Pope's inner circle of trusted cardinals. As an outspoken defender of church orthodoxy, supported and championed by the powerful, Pell's ascendancy was remarkable and seemingly unstoppable. As the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse brought to light horrific stories about sexual abuse of the most vulnerable, Pell portrayed himself as the first man in the Catholic Church to tackle the problem. But questions about what the Cardinal knew, and when, persisted.

Louise Milligan pieces together decades of disturbing activities highlighting Pell's actions and cover-ups. The book is a testament to the most intimate stories of complainants. Many people entrusted their secrets to be told here for the first time. Multi-award-winning Cardinal reveals uncomfortable truths about a culture of sexual entitlement, abuse of trust and how ambition can silence evil.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.

©2017 Louise Milligan (P)2019 Audible Studios

Let us never Forget

A very important piece of investigative writing, important that we remember the terrible sacrifice of the innocence of youth...

Why you should buy another clergy sex abuse book:

First, the author is a good narrator; if a British accent makes a speaker sound really intelligent, an Australian accent makes them sound both intelligent and someone you’d like to have a beer (or a cuppa) with. Or maybe that’s just Milligan’s personality; it’s easy to understand why so many people, the laity and clergy alike, were willing to talk to her. She is compassionate yet objective.

Secondly, we have been calling for accountability on the part of Bishops, but as a practicing Catholic, I know of lay employees who managed very nicely under the old system thank you very much and they continue to resist change. This is a story about a Cardinal who was called to account, but it also explains how people at every level in the hierarchy worked to ignore and/or cover up criminal behavior. We need to understand how the whole system operates.

Thirdly, as I’m writing this review on the audible US site, you probably live in the United States too. The clergy sex abuse here is so close—many historic cases of abuse occurred in my own parish—that when I read about abuses in the US, I either feel too much and am overcome by emotion or cope by tuning out. Somehow, listening to the saga of another country helped me be attentive without getting overwhelmed.

Lastly, this book confirmed not only that this is a worldwide problem but that brave and plucky people—which seems to pretty much characterize all Australians—can change the system. There is something marvelous about the way Australians tackle evil that we Americans would do well to imitate.