If we all flail about intemperately over this, justice will not be done. The Church must be seen to be totally ruthless about cutting out every piece of that rot and it must be done publicly. I see little sign of this, unfortunately. The Pope goes to a Catholic country, smiles and waves a lot, does a big Mass and produces a litany of requests for forgiveness. That just fills me with gloom. He either takes this by the scruff or else the Church doesn't survive. Is that strong enough for you? Again, two things. First, the vast majority of ordinary Catholics, including priests, are not complicit in this. The Church is not a democracy so it relies on the people at the top to act. Sadly, I think most of the top men may well be complicit, by their silence if nothing else. Ordinary Catholics haven't got the power to shake up the hierarchy and the latter have plenty of backwoodsmen supporting them. Second, individual cases of abuse may range from isolated bouts of fondling through clothes in the vestry to out-and-out serial anal child rape over decades. Cover-ups range from a momentary turning of a blind eye to years of lying, conspiracy and shuffling evil men around the country to protect them from justice. Sorry to be so explicit, but the point is that we simply can't lock up every single perpetrator as if they've all done the same thing. Throwing-away-the-key syndrome for all is redolent of lynching, only with white gloves on, to misquote the Pope. But let's out them, every single one. They don't deserve privacy or protection. That's the beginning of the solution.