The emotion it carries alone, whether of recriminating triumphalism or bitter disbelief, will fuel long and tempestuous divisions. These pose a greater danger of perpetually focusing on Pell, those episodes in 1996 and missing the more critical bigger picture.

But for the sake of Ballarat, its future healing and the protection of its young ones , this issue of clerical child abuse must be about more than one man.

Justice, to the extent it can be delivered by our system, has quashed and removed the criminal accusation that Cardinal Pell is himself a paedophile. That may be difficult to bear for many and many more will simply not believe it but you cannot wholly abandon the hope of justice as a defining principle in our society over one decision.

READ MORE: A 'devastating' ruling: Ballarat survivors react to George Pell's appeal

The presumption of innocence should be sacred and we have a system that tries to serve it. To say Cardinal Pell should continue to suffer for crimes of which he is innocent for the sake of a church that has proven itself to be scandalously guilty is morally indefensible.

The Courier has always argued the far greater danger in finding a scapegoat, albeit such a high profile one who has made a specialty of being a lightning rod for criticism of the church's arrogance and indifference, is to lose focus of a much more dangerous cultural problem.

One man as villain obscures the breadth of the crimes perpetrated by many, a church that covered them up for decades and the rotten culture that allowed it all to happen.

Why is this so important?

Because we know from the royal commission into sexual abuse that the catholic church in Ballarat was rotten for decades and it left behind a trail of hundreds perhaps even thousands of ruined lives. It made the morally bankrupt decision to protect reputation over innocent victims and it's legacy is still being felt.

The Commission's final report was scathing in its assessment and so it should be. Without a full picture of the truth we have no hope of addressing the problem and ensuring it does not happen again.

The commission was also invaluable in putting the voices of the victims first. This must be a lesson for us as a society into the future if we hope not to repeat these horrors.

So the redacted sections of the final report must be released as soon as possible to further inform these decisions and a way forward. The commission's findings into the Cardinal's evidence given in Melbourne and Rome will be all the more valuable in this quest for truth.

So the next chapter in the saga of Cardinal George Pell and the sorry history of the catholic church in the 20^th century may not be as spectacular or newsworthy as a criminal trial but it may well be much more important.

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