Are you not aware that priests go to Confession too?
In fact, there is a story about a priest who had deteriorated, I believe, into a state of beggar-like existence and was living on the steps of a church. (There was a thread posted about this story.)
Pope John Paul II found out about this priest and invited him to come talk with him. He then ask this priest to hear his Confession.
It brought the priest out of his depression (might have been alcoholism) — in fact John Paul II and most Popes go to Confession weekly.
“Are you not aware that priests go to Confession too?”
Does not the Catholic church say that absolution cannot be obtained without contrition, and that contrition is not possible in an unregenerate state of sin?
If an active, serial child molester does not qualify as an unrepentent, unregenerate sinner, then I do not know what does.