#Non-fiction Fallen

• Title: Fallen
  
• Author: Lucie Morris-Marr
  
• Genre: non-fiction
  
• Published: 2019
• #NonficNov
• #AWW2020  @AustralianWomenWriters
• Trivia: Walkley Award
  

Introduction:

1. Lucie Morris-Marr is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist
2. …who has covered the entire Pell case.
3. The long-anticipated decision of the jury…what did they decide?
4. Did  Pell win the appeal?
5. Did the verdict trigger a storm of feelings 
6. …among advocates and survivors?

Conclusion:

1. I read Cardinal  published by Louise Milligan in 2017.
2. Ms Milligan peeled back the layers of George Pell’s life to reveal in detail:
3. G. Pell’s youth
4. the building of the case against…the cardinal from historical documents
5. the cover-up by the Catholic Church concerning alleged child abuse by G. Pell.
6. It was an impressive book and won
7. ..The Walkley Book of the Year 2017.

Why is Ms Lucie Morris-Maar’s  book different?

1. Ms Morris-Marr continues the narrative where Cardinal ended
2. …the inside story of the Pell trial.
3. The “Cathedral Trial”  started nearly 14 months after the cardinal
4. was first charged for multiple allegations of child sexual abuse.
5. A choirboy may have been a small, powerless adolescent soprano
6. but his voice will resonate for years to come.

Last thoughts:

1. Strong point:
2. Ms Morris-Marr revealed her personal struggle  (mentally and physically)
3. while writing this book.
4. Ms Milligan on the other hand… remained outside the narrative of Cardinal.
5. Weak point:  it is difficult to make a trial procedure exciting
6. …only Helen Garner can do that!
7. Personally, I enjoyed Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell
8. more than I did Fallen.
9. Ms Miligan’s book made my whole body go cold….
10. Ms Morris-Marr’s book is seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary
11. …a trial procedure: questioning witnesses, jury deliberation, mistrial and retrial.
12. Weak point: Fallen  – Ms Morris-Marr connects the dots of research.
13. …but does not give me much emotion about the trial.
14. Strong point:  Cardinal – Ms Milligan creates with the help of
15. research, observation, description and reflection
16. an intense book…full blast… drama.!
17. So, I don’t think Fallen will win The Walkley Award 2020
18. ….my advice read Cardinal ….the winner of The Walkley 2017!

UPDATE: 10.11.2020

1. Today an unprecedented report
2. about Cardinal McCarrick of the United States
3. who was defrocked of his red hat and
4. …dismissed from the clerical state for
5. sexual abuse and harassment was released
6. in 2017 by Pope Francis I.
7. Why so important?
8. For the first time the Vatican is willing to confront
9. the MISTAKE made by a pope and now saint, John Paul II
10. in appointing Theodore McCarrick as Archbishop of Washington DC in
11. 2000…and a cardinal the following year.
12. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Timeline:

1. 29 June 2017 – Victoria Police announced they were charging Pell with a series of sexual assault offences with several counts and several victims.
2. 1 May 2018 – Pell was committed to stand trial on several historical sexual offence charges.
3. August 2018 – The Cathedral Trial …for the allegations of misconduct in St Patrick’s Cathedral.
4. 13 March 2019  – sentencing Pell to serve 6 years in jail Pell was also registered as a sex offender.
5. 21 August 2019 – the Court of Appeal issued its ruling, which upheld the conviction.
6. January 2020  –  special leave to appeal Pell’s conviction should be overturned.
7. 7 April 2020 –  the High Court unanimously granted leave to appeal,  quashing Pell’s convictions.
8. 14 April 2020 –  it was reported that Pell was under a secret investigation by Victorian police regarding a separate allegation of child sexual abuse committed in Ballarat in the 1970s.
9. October 2020 – allegations that €700,000 had been transferred from Vatican accounts to a witness against Pell. (Pay-Off??).
10. “Vatican categorically [denied]” interference in the trial of Pell.
11. Hmmm,   I wonder….