Jim, in order to understand the sex abuse scandal, I think you need to understand the power structure of the Catholic Church. It's true that in the last 2 centuries, Rome has sometimes tried to promote the idea of the absolute power of the Pope, but that has never been true. The Catholic Church is a confusing web of interdependent autocracies, and the powers of superior autocracies (like Rome) are actually quite limited. Each bishop is the sole authority in his own diocese, and can rarely be overruled. And each pastor is the sole authority in his own parish, and the power of the bishop to overrule him is severely limited.
Now, there are many weak bishops, and they are often ruled by political factions and wealthy businessmen and powerful cabals of priests within their dioceses. Our Bishop of Sacramento is like that. Nice guy, but he seems to be afraid of everybody.
The structure and power of national churches varies from country to country. The U.S. has the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops http://www.usccb.org/about/, which meets twice a year and decides things by consensus, not by majority vote. And any bishop may decide not to go along with the consensus and go his own way.
Ireland is different because it has had the Catholic Church as a national church. I don't know how closely the church and state are tied nowadays, but there once was a very close tie. The seat of the Primate of Ireland is in Armagh, and there is some kind of council of bishops. But again, each bishop is sole authority in his own diocese.

Rome stayed completely out of the child sex abuse scandal until about 2000, and expected local bishops to handle such matters in their own dioceses. After a lot of outside pressure, Cardinal Ratzinger finally pushed John Paul II to take some responsibility. Ratzinger took more interest in the problem when he became Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis seems to be trying harder - but meeting a lot of political opposition from all sides.

So, that's an overview.

-Joe-