Making the Catholic Church pay compensation to the victims does not equate to blaming innocent lay persons who were children at the time of the offences. The surviving offenders should be brought to justice regardless of how old they are; a crime is a crime, and an example should be made of the perpetrators along with any individual or organisation which aided and abetted those crimes. It has nothing to do with punishing the Church, it is about justice on behalf of the victims. How the Vatican deals with the expense is its own affair - if they decide to raise the money from innocent lay-people, then more fool them for providing it.