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CARDINAL GEORGE PELL (IMAGE: AAP/DAVID CROSLING)

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when a priest was the first person you would believe. Now? Not so much.

The royal commission into, among others, the Catholic Church and Cardinal George Pell, has killed that off. Then-prime minister Julia Gillard’s decision to bring it on in 2012 triggered an eight-year unravelling which reached its endpoint with the judges of the High Court and the royal commission now delivering their final verdicts.