In The Prince, David Marr investigates George Pell’s career and a trial that convulsed a nation. Marr reveals a cleric at ease with power and aggressive in asserting the prerogatives of the Vatican. He charts Pell’s response – as a man, a priest, an archbishop and a prince of the church – to the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic world: the sexual abuse of children.

This is the story of a cleric torn by the contest between his church and its victims, and slow to realise that the Catholic Church cannot, in the end, escape secular scrutiny. 

The Prince is a portrait of hypocrisy and ambition, set against a backdrop of terrible suffering and an ancient institution in turmoil.