The Australian Judiciary has issued a gag order on anything being publishing relating to the George Pell matter.

Cardinal Pell was the former archbishop for Sidney and then became the Chief of the Secretariat for the Economy of Saint-Siège (that is, he was the Finance Minister for the State of the City of the Vatican and the Catholic Church). He was tried in Melbourne in December 2018 and convicted of paedophilia. He is due to be incarcerated.

About a 100 media organizations have received a letter from Kerri Judd, Victoria’s Director of State Prosecutions, prohibiting them from publishing the news.

Media censorship is common in Australia, the United States and Israel and even more so in the United Kingdom. The decision to censure can be made by the two branches of state power: the Judiciary (in order to protect certain victims) and the Executive ( without having to explain why).

This case is newsworthy because Australia has a very small Catholic minority yet the media is being gagged after the trial and we do not know why.