I have read this story before - that the previous Pope, while a very good and holy man, had difficulty believing that this problem was so rampant all around the globe. He thought it a case of isolated cases, and the church needed to try to clean out the leaders & priests who were implicated, and then try to get on with other business.
I think PBXVI is a more pragmatic Pope, and was more realistic about ths problem, the scope of it, and the need to really clean house. That is why Benedict has been working so hard to restructure the seminaries, and to establish screening procedures for priestly candidates. No known homosexuals are to now be admitted to the seminaries.
The rancor against Benedict is rather intriguing, because they rail against him for his anti-homosexual rules for the clergy - and at the same time claim he was protecting homoesexual priests. It makes no sense when looked at with an open mind. Also, the leftists, who never fail to rally for the homosexual agenda, will not admit that the vast majority (80-90%) of accusations against priests are of a homosexual nature - with young, mostly teen-aged boys, and are thus not strictly pedophilic. This of course does not decrease the seriousness of the charge, but is does clarify the nature of the abuse!
We should remember that the full knowledge of the magnitude of this problem only came about in the 1990’s - and by then PJPII was suffering from Parkinson’s and other debilities of old age.
Good post.