All Christians should hold themselves to a better standard than that of the World. For those priests and all of us will be judged by Christ who will cast into utter darkness those who have sinned without repentance.
Were terrible injustices done by Bishops in response to sexual abuse by clergy? Yes. Were those always with ill intent towards victims? I doubt it. But the fact remains by believing worldly counsel when it came to how to deal with this sin the Bishops failed the victims. They also failed Christ, because it is by His standards they should have conducted themselves.
Whether their response was to protect the Diocese from scandal or because they thought clergy could be healed their concern was based on keeping the good opinion of the world by giving it the pride of place rather than yielding to what Jesus told us in Scripture. Millstones.
I think some people in the Church were confused, some were naive, and some (such as Bernardin, Weakland, Mahony, etc.) were genuinely evil. Mahony is no longer in LA but he’s still a cardinal of voting age and seems to be in the good graces of Pope Francis (who celebrated mass with him a couple of days ago, ironically, right after issuing a statement lamenting sexual abuse).