To me the main problem with this, is not so much the fact that it has happened, it is indeed a grevieous and horrible offense which while no more widespread in The Church than in other Christian groups, it is to be deplored that it occurs at all. Rather, the main problem, as far as The Church is concerned, is the response that has been given to it and how the whole matter had been handled by the bishops and even the Pope.
Some bishops have in the past simply moved the child abusing priests from one diocese to another, thinking that excluding an abusing priest from contact with what would be his victims would somehow solve the problem. Even the current Pope himself, when he was a cardinal, is said to have had something to do with "covering up" abuses. Pope John Paul II didn't do much better on this matter either.
Instead of actually hammering down, excommunicating and turning men guilty of this to the authorities so that they receive their proper sentence(which in my opinion should be the most severe, namely, the death sentence); these churchmen handled the whole thing with soft gloves. Blinded perhaps by a misplaced love and compassion or just downright cowardice, they tried to hide the dirt under the carpet and as a result got themselves and the whole Church with them into a mess; doing along the way untold harm to the image and voice of The Church.
That, to me, is the essence of the problem.
A priest engaging in child abuse or even homosexual acts is not something new; men have been prone to such sins from the beginning. What matters here is how the issue is handled, which is what in turn has the potential to suppress future offenses of this kind. Back in the 16th century, during the pontificate of Pope St. Pius V, there were some cases of this around, and he stroke fiercely against them. After expounding on the gravity of this offense, the Pope concludes his encyclical establishing that:
Constitution Horrendum illud scelu, August 30, 1568
"So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.
Therefore, wishing to pursue with greater rigor than we have exerted since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss."
This is the proper attitude and response to offenses of this kind. To do otherwise, to ignore or try to cover it up is giving, as it were, impunity to such acts, something which is, as the Pope says,
"the greatest incitement to sin". Offenses like this are not just the sins of an individual, they make an impact on The Church herself, they are a source of much embarrassment for the whole Church and ultimately a hindrance to her mission.
In truth, it is quite a sad case, that a minority of abusing priests and an unwilliness to properly deal with them, has tainted the image of The Church and has done much to undermine her moral voice. As a consequence, the majority of churchmen, who are good and faithful, have to deal with being painted with a broad brush and seen under a negative light.
If this issue had been handled differently, if the offenders had been driven out and excluded from The Church and handed to the secular authorities for proper punishment, if an example had been made of them, whereby the spiritual excellency of The Church was exhibited, things would be much different and an unnecessary obstacle, for those seeking to embrace or remain within the true faith, would have been avoided altogether.
Evo
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