Bingo!
They made it worse when they covered it up because they were worried about their church's reputation. These are men of faith who are held to a higher standard and should be.
There are also other situations where the situation is not so clear cut.
Not true. When in doubt report it.
If you are wrong, you might be ruining a man's career and livelihood by blackening his name with the worst possible slander.
What about the victim if it's true?
As Christians we should always be worried first about the weakest and most vulnerable.
You can't really talk to the suspected victim about it, because if it's untrue, you might wind up being suspected of the same crime for discussing such things with him or her.
Not true.
The only reason for not confronting such a sensitive issue head on is to avoid finding the truth. A perfect storm was created that made this problem worse in your church than other churches. A culture exists where the reputation of your church is supposed to be protected at all cost. The priesthood is supposed to have all kinds of special authority and an elevated status. Your priesthood has a disproportionate number of homosexuals in it and being in charge of young post pubescent boys the opportunity was perfect for them.
If these crimes were reported to authorities immediately a culture that protected the criminals would not have developed and probably the potential for it would have been less.
That's all there is in most cases of abuse.
You say: "think of the victim" - when the whole point is that you are not sure there even is a victim.
If you were certain of that, there there is no issue whatsoever.