The Church has a methodology of forgiving sin and rehabilitating the sinner. It proved wholly inadequate to most situations. The recidivism rate among these perverts is staggering. And yet, a tiny handful are actually capable of rehabilitation. I had a valued pastor and good friend who had such a tendency at one point in his priesthood. He would play basketball with teenaged boys and take the opportunity to slap their backsides for reasons beyond basketball. He recognized his problem without being discovered or reported. He went to the police department in the major metropolitan area where he was living and working as a priest. He asked the help of the police in getting therapeutic help. He never told his superiors. I knew him in another state fifteen years later. He had taken up a variety of useful solitary hobbies and solitary spare time activities in place of contact with young people and he was doing an outstanding job as a pastor. His old problem was belatedly discovered and he was removed from active priesthood. He entered cloistered life. He is well worth praying for.
I am quite convinced that the priest in question was one of the rare cases of actual rehabilitation. Nonetheless, the zero tolerance policy adopted by his new diocese where I knew him was and is justified. The faithful MUST be able to trust the priests or the Church will continue to be devastated. We are promised that "the gates of hell will not prevail against" the Church but that does not justify the sort of gross negligence of the hierarchy that allowed the predators to continue in various locations after the hierarchy well knew what was going on.
As an attorney, I walked into several prosecutor's offices where diocesan attorneys were plea bargaining away charges against numerous priests. Those priests now seem to be defrocked or permanently suspended but the diocesan lawyers were effectively prolonging their freedom and probably their careers as priests.
I also believe that much older men such as Joe Paterno and many of our bishops had great difficulty coping with the fact that such behavior had occurred at all. Others surely knew and were motivated to cover up at the expense of children. In Paterno's youth (late WW II), if anyone you knew molested a child, that person was in for a serious beating and not likely to be reported to authorities.
I occasionally attended Boy Scout Troop meetings on Friday nights when I was in grammar school. The scoutmaster was a motorcycle cop. He was turned in to his department (apparently by Boy Scout officials for misbehaving with some of the scouts (not me). Because he was a police officer, he was given the opportunity to resign from the police department and permanently leave the state. This is a lesser equivalent of moving pervert priests around. The scoutmaster would remain free and not have a record. Some other state and its kids might be victimized.
One reason for the extreme but understandable reaction of men to the Sandusky scandal is because his behavior is particularly disgusting to men. Women have their own strong reactions to such behavior. The behavior was something that traditionally justified male violence against the perpetrator. There are strong and virtually uncontrollable emotions involved. One particular problem with McQueary is that he seems to claim to be aware that Sandusky was anally raping a ten-year old boy in the shower room and his only reaction was to bang locker doors to let Sandusky know that Sandusky and the boy were not alone. I really don't care if McQueary had a job there in the football program, his failure to at least interfere with the anal rape of a little boy, if not punch out Sandusky AND put Sandusky's genitals temporarily out of commission, is NOT normal male behavior. Sandusky was not likely to call the authorities against him either for obvious reasons and McQueary (a somewhat recent Penn State football player) was 30 or more years younger and likely in a lot better shape than Sandusky just as a matter of age.
The Church situation as to how a generation of bishops were named, many of whom were more a problem than a solution, is too long and complex a story but is rooted in a very long tenure of a Belgian archbishop named Jadot who died last year and was responsible for recommending many of the worst of the bishops: Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester, Archbishop Joseph Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, Humberto Cardinal Madeiros of Boston, Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston, Roger Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles, Archbishop John May of St. Louis, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Bishop Joseph Adamec of Altoona-Johnstown, Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet and so many, many more of their ilk. They are being replaced by actual Catholic prelates who are far more vigilant and far less tolerant of all things liberal and lavender. The method of replacement seems glacial. It is attrition and age since John Paul II and Benedict XVI had to recognize the serious doctrinal and behavioral problems in the Catholic Church in the US. Entire states have been purged and we are getting a far better class of leadership.
God bless you and yours!
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