Melbourne University Press also removes e-book of Louise Milligan’s Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Melbourne University Press will withdraw Louise Milligan’s book about George Pell from Victorian bookshops following the cardinal’s charges for multiple historical sexual offences.

Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell details allegations against Pell, but now he has been charged the book may prejudice the case and be in contempt of court.

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The chief executive of MUP, Louise Adler, said she started the removal process on Thursday after she heard he had been charged. She has not received any communication from Pell’s lawyers about removal of the book.

MUP will ask booksellers to take the best-selling book off their shelves in Melbourne and the state of Victoria. The e-book will also be withdrawn.

“MUP is taking all reasonable measures to withdraw Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell by Louise Milligan from sale in Victoria now that Cardinal Pell has been charged in that jurisdiction,” Adler told Guardian Australia.

Cardinal Pell’s Rome office has labelled the book, published in May, “an exercise in character assassination”.



Milligan and 7.30 colleague Andy Burns won the Gold Quill at Victoria’a Quill Awards for journalism for their reporting on Pell and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Milligan is an investigative reporter for ABC TV’s 7.30 and Four Corners and covered the royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse.

Novelist Tom Keneally has called the book a “heartbreaking tribute” to abused children.