Fairfax’s The Age has been forced to issue an apology after its Facebook account ran posts calling for the death of Cardinal George Pell.
For about an hour yesterday the Melbourne newspaper’s Facebook page carried the words “Die Pell”. Cardinal Pell, who currently works for The Vatican, is presently embroiled in child sex claims against the clergy. There has been allegations against Pell that he deliberately covered-up and ignored claims of paedophile priests under his charge as far back as the 70s.
Fairfax’s retraction read: “The Age would like to apologise to readers and Cardinal George Pell for an offensive remark posted on our Facebook page this morning. The post was deleted as soon as staff became aware of the problem.’’
The subsequent post and comments have been deleted; however, a number of reader comments were less than savoury about the Catholic Church and Cardinal Pell himself.
The Age’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Holden, was quoted on Fairfax Radio as saying the “attack” was most likely the work of a hacker and not a disgruntled Fairfax employee. Although he added “I don’t know absolutely”.
