Cardinal’s sin and why the Australian media can't report on it
The front page of yesterday’s Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, is dominated by a single word in huge white type, all caps, on a black background: CENSORED.
“The world is reading a very important story that is relevant to Victorians,” reads the subhead. “The
Herald Sun is prevented from publishing details of this significant news. But trust us. It’s a story you deserve to read.”
The story is, indeed, a blockbuster, especially for Australian citizens: Cardinal George Pell, sometimes described as the third-most-powerful Vatican official, was convicted of all charges that he sexually molested two choirboys in Australia in the late 1990s. (Pell, 77, has been the Vatican’s chief financial officer in recent years; he earlier was the archbishop of Sydney and of Melbourne.)
But because of a court-issued gag order intended to preserve impartiality, the news media has been forbidden from publishing news in Australia on the details of the Melbourne trial, and now on the unanimous decision of the jury.
Suppression orders are fairly common in Australia. But they are true anachronisms in the digital age, where information, thankfully, can’t be shut up in a padlocked barn.
In the meantime, publications worldwide are treading carefully, as they try to avoid legal trouble.
One of the first to publish a story on the conviction was the Daily Beast, a major news site based in New York.
Editor in chief Noah Shachtman said he waded carefully into the dangerous legal waters. “We understood there could be legal, and even criminal, consequences if we ran this story,” he said. “But ultimately, this was an easy call. You’ve got a top Vatican official convicted of a horrific crime. That’s major, major news. The public deserves to know about it.”
The Associated Press reported this week that Pell had been removed from Pope Francis’ informal Cabinet, and some news organisations have published stories on the gag order.
The suppression order is remaining in place, reportedly because there is another case against Pell, on separate charges, making its way through the courts.
The secrecy surrounding the court case — and now the verdict — echoes the secrecy that has always been so appalling a part of widespread sexual abuse by priests.
That has changed a great deal in recent years — in part because of the
Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in 2002 that broke open a global scandal and was the subject of the Oscar-winning film Spotlight. But clearly, it hasn’t changed entirely.
Steven Spaner, Australia co-ordinator from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told the Daily Beast that he felt frustrated and left “in the dark” because of the suppression of news about Pell. “It’s hard to know if there are any shenanigans going on — things the church did that are illegal themselves,” he said. “There is always suspicion when you don’t know what is going on.”
Pope Francis told journalists earlier this year that he would talk about Pell only after the judicial process was complete. America magazine reported that Pell, who has always insisted on this innocence, will appeal.
And so the silence continues.