Acclaimed book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell (MUP, RRP $34.99/ebook $16.99) by Louise Milligan is now available across Australia and worldwide after court suppression orders required the book to be withheld from sale until the judicial processes were complete.

In Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, Louise Milligan pieces together decades of disturbing activities and cover-ups by Australia’s most powerful Catholic leader who became Vatican treasurer and adviser to Pope Francis.

Today it can be reported that on 11 December 2018, Cardinal George Pell was convicted of five charges of sexual crimes against children. It was a unanimous verdict by a jury in Melbourne’s county court.

“I was motivated to write this book because I wanted people to know what I have known about George Pell,” reflects author and investigative journalist Louise Milligan. “We have been waiting for the justice system to run its course. Nothing can undo what has been done but some justice has prevailed.”

In Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell Louise Milligan pieces together decades of disturbing activities and cover-ups by Australia’s most powerful Catholic leader who became Vatican treasurer and adviser to Pope Francis.

For the first time, intimate accounts of The Choirboy and The Kid experiences are revealed in the book.

Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell delivers uncomfortable truths about a culture of entitlement and abuse of trust within the Catholic Church. It is a chilling case study in how ambition can silence evil.

Richard Tegoni, Acting CEO, Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) said, “The stories of endurance and suffering by complainants now deserve to be read widely. MUP is proud to have published this landmark work that is one of the most important public interest books of MUP’s history.”

In October 2016, MUP commissioned Louise Milligan to write the book after she had spent more than two years reporting on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse.

Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell won the highest honour in Australian journalism for a book, Walkley Book of the Year (2017), the Civic Choice Award of the Melbourne Prize, and the Sir Owen Dixon Chambers Law Reporter of the Year for Louise Milligan. For her exclusive reports on allegations against Cardinal George Pell for ABC TV 7.30, Louise Milligan won two Quill awards, including Gold Quill for best story of the year, the highest honour in Victorian journalism. Louise Milligan is Irish-born and was raised a devoted Catholic.