Cardinal’s conviction hush-hush in Australia

The third-highest ranked member of the Vatican, Cardinal George Pell, has been convicted in Australia of sexually molesting two choirboys in the 1990s.

However, media in that country can’t report on the case because of a court-ordered publication ban.

The order was meant to ensure impartiality during the cardinal’s Melbourne trial, but it has been slammed in Australia as censorship. The headline Thursday in the Herald Sun, a paper in Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria, read in large type: CENSORED, and below it: “The world is reading a very important story that is relevant to Victorians. The Herald Sun is prevented from publishing details of this significant news. But trust us. It’s a story you deserve to read.”

Pell, 77, was accused of abusing the boys at Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996. At that time he was archbishop of Melbourne.

When the case first went to trial, The Daily Beast reports that prosecutors requested the order to “prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice.”

After Pell’s first trial in June was declared a mistrial, a jury in his second trial returned a unanimous verdict in Melbourne on Tuesday.

However the ban remains in place as Pell faces another trial in 2019.

Dubbed “the swimmers trial,” it will hear allegations Pell “sexually offended” two boys in the 1970s as they swam at a pool in a Melbourne suburb.

The ban has been condemned outside of Australia, with The Washington Post’s media columnist Margaret Sullivan writing: “The secrecy surrounding the court case — and now the verdict — is offensive. That’s especially so because it echoes the secrecy that has always been so appalling a part of widespread sexual abuse by priests.

“The Catholic Church’s culture of denial and its stonewalling has been disgraceful. Journalists — whose core mission is truthtelling — shouldn’t be forced to be a party to it.”

As well as serving as archbishop of Sydney and Melbourne, Pell looked after the Vatican’s finances. Pope Francis appointed him as secretary for the economy, the Vatican’s third most powerful position, in 2014.

Pell, who has declared his innocence, had taken a leave of absence from the position to fight the charges.

The Vatican on Wednesday did not address the explosive case, but it did announce that in October Pope Francis had removed Pell from his advisory group known as the Council of Cardinals,

“The Holy See has the utmost respect for the Australian courts,” Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said, according to The Week. “We are aware there is a suppression order in place and we respect that order.”

Even though they aren’t subject to the ban, media outlets outside Australia have still been extremely careful when publishing stories on the case; the Daily Beast used geoblocking to ensure its story wasn’t run in Australia, for example.

Publications within Australia, however, have reason to be cautious. The Washington Post, citing Catholic outlet Crux, reports that in the spring, a state court employee was fired just for looking up Pell’s case in a restricted system.

Cardinal George Pell