""I do think that the threads on this subject have gone way overboard in dwelling on the past and on blaming all sorts of elderly people for things that happened twenty to forty years ago.""

Joe, people are blamed for their actions only when those actions come to light, and the evidence is there to be acted upon.

How many years after WW2 was Adolf Eichmann caught, tried, and convicted.

Besides that, you are pleading special privilege for the Roman Catholic Church, based on its religious nature.

We wouldn't even be having this conversation if it were a case of another organisation (e.g. a private school) which had covered the actions of a member of staff to protect its reputation, and I believe you know that.

Those who abet and hide a crime are as guilty as the perpetrator, and as deserving of just retribution, whatever and wherever they may be.

We are discussing neither the prevention, nor the causes of child abuse. The subject under discussion, stripped of irrelevant matters, is the proper treatment of those who wantonly allow it to continue, thereby becoming accessory to the crime.

Don T.