AUSTRALIA
The Australian
July 27, 2017
JOHN FERGUSON
Victorian EditorMelbourne
@fergusonjw
TESSA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@TessaAkerman
There has never been a walk like it in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia.
A couple of hundred steps to and from Melbourne Magistrates Court; a cardinal ever-so-slowly navigating blind hate and blind faith on the way to and from his appointment with the law.
For George Pell, the three-minute struggle from Crockett Chambers, in the heart of Melbourne’s legal precinct, looked deeply uncomfortable as scores of media scrambled for the defining image of a one-time church superpower charged with multiple historical sex offences.
The visual untidiness of the media and police scrum was juxtaposed with the image of an old man — he’s 76 — in immaculate clerical attire making his way into the well-ordered court precinct.
Cardinal Pell’s court hearing provided an opportunity to broadcast his defiance, even if the walk was slow and the welcoming on the concrete steps of the court was mixed. There were those blindly hateful of the cardinal and those blind in their faith, neither group likely to give ground.
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