Another week of sessions remains in Ballarat, followed by private sessions around the country in June and more hearings in the months after that, followed by months and months of compiling the data and testimonies. In other words, it will be a very long time before we see any findings.

But that is where this process is headed, and for all the debate around the effectiveness of royal commissions and what they actually achieve, it is hoped that this one bears fruit and hasn’t all been for nothing.

At the very least, the hearings have given victims the opportunity to have their stories heard — something that can be a key step in the ongoing healing process.

Maybe it can also provide something more for those victims, such as recourse through civil court proceedings.

But there needs to be major ramifications for those that harboured, shifted and covered up for paedophiles like Gerald Ridsdale.

Throughout his appearance at the public hearings via videolink from prison, it has been as obvious as ever that members of the Catholic Church simply moved Ridsdale from parish to parish rather than report his evil behaviour to police. 

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. 

Royal commissions have a lower onus of proof than criminal courts, but surely one of the results of these hearings is the recommendation that those responsible for concealing Ridsdale and co’s disgusting crimes face charges themselves.

As Ridsdale himself said yesterday, if his superiors had turned him in as soon as they knew what he was doing, the number of victims would have been drastically reduced.

On the one hand, this is buck-passing — Ridsdale should have stopped himself. He didn’t and he is now paying for his crimes through a lengthy jail term.

But the church has long dodged responsibility for its part in these matters, either as an institution (through the “Ellis defence”) or as individuals.

Maybe it’s time that responsibility was thrust upon them via a court of law.