Patrick Carlyon: Turmoil shows Cardinal Pell is not just anyone

THE word had been that Cardinal George Pell would be afforded no special favours at court. Yet, he wasn’t like anyone else, writes Patrick Carlyon.

THE word had been that Cardinal George Pell would be afforded no special favours at court on Wednesday.

Yet he wasn’t like everyone else. The journalists camped out in the pre-dawn inkiness, before the tinkle of the first tram, told you as much.

The cardinal arrived at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court a tick before 9am, to be confronted, as all are, by security scanners. But his presence did not set off beeps and whines, as everyone else’s seems to.

By the time he had passed, after a wave of the electronic wand, everyone was looking at the stooped man in the black suit and coat.

Conversations had stopped mid-sentence, though Pell hardly played to the attention. His was a balding head in a wash of hi-vis security.

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL SWARMED AS HE FACES COURT

Cardinal George Pell walks into court surrounded by police. Picture: Michael Dodge/Getty

Someone applauded as Pell moved off, a lone man in a throng. He had became, as the clerk in Court 2 announced a tick after 10am, the defendant in the “matter of George Pell”.

Afterwards, when the six minutes of court business was concluded, a protective army followed him.

The Herald Sun counted 22 police officers. They encircled him, while he clasped his hands.

Out on the street, Pell looked past the bobbing heads and the criss-cross of arms that held cameras above. He looked resigned to what one photographer called “media lava”.

Police officers circle Cardinal George Pell as he arrives at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court. Picture: Mark Stewart

Cardinal George Pell arrives at the Melbourne Magistrates Court to face a filing hearing on historical sexual assault offences. Picture: Mark Stewart

Arm in arm, police strained, as if fighting gravity’s flow, down the slope of the Lonsdale St hill. Officers barked orders, but seemed helpless to do anything other than stop and still the currents from time to time.

The trip from the court to Pell’s lawyers’ offices, door to door, is maybe 100 metres. A mother walking her toddler could normally cover the trip in a minute or two.

This journey took longer.

Hoardings skittered and journalists tripped; to go down was to be trampled. Onlookers, mindful that they would be never again witness such concentrations of media, yelled epithets. Some good, some bad.

“I’m praying for you, Cardinal Pell,” a man shouted.

Wednesday’s court appearance was optional; Pell need not have attended.

But his presence demanded international attention. CNN, and its eight staff, were the first to arrive, at 5am. By 7.30, about 70 media people were milling about. It signalled an interest which for a few moments in the street on Wednesday verged on unhinged, and also signalled what still lies ahead.

Media crews surround George Pell as he arrives at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court. Picture: David Caird

Pell’s legal team was headed by Robert Richter, QC, who’s said to cost $15,000 a day and is considered one of the nation’s best defence counsels.

Richter doesn’t shout; he probes. On Wednesday, he spoke so quietly some in the gallery missed his words. His client need not plead yet, but he said Pell would plead not guilty.

Pell sat behind his counsel, a study in calm and stillness. His coat swam across his shoulders.

He is 76. He was slow to rise and slow to sit on the arrival of magistrate Duncan Reynolds.

Pell did not acknowledge the gallery, where sat two biographers and Chrissie Foster, a campaigner against clergy abuse.

Pell had said he was looking forward to his “day in court”.

He’s facing many such days. His case is next due back in court in October — a date that is again a procedural hearing, ostensibly about the setting of more dates. Not that the substance of proceedings, or the lack of them, counts for much.

A collision of supporters and protesters will loom for each appearance.

On Wednesday, a man in a mask outside court mumbled that it was never too late to lay charges. A lady toted a rather large portrait of Mary and her baby.

A lady holds aloft a large portrait of Mary and her baby outside the court. Picture: Mark Stewart

Their ilk will draw the media’s eye far more than will the cardinal’s supporters. These were the neatly dressed ladies who, in much softer tones, told Pell that God was thinking of him.

The time for tissues and a Bible — both of which sat ready at the witness box on Wednesday — seems unlikely any time soon. If and when those moments do arrive, they will play out amid the media scrums and the random shouts that will always trail “the matter of George Pell”.

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