I’m no theologian, and I don’t want to go down the Protestant/Catholic road to contention. But I do think the Roman Catholic Church needs to have an uncomfortable Reformation. I don’t suggest they change anything of their theology — no need to go Martin Luther or anything — but they need to do MASSIVE cleanup that will take decades. If it’s not ugly and embarrassing, it’s not real.
Better PR won’t do it.
The Catholic Church has been here before -- what we need is for reformers to step up and enact true reforms. Today, we celebrate the feast day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose reform of Benedictine monasteries (the Cluniac reform) was part of the many reforms during the "long twelfth century" that lasted from the 1070s or so to the early 1200s. Other key reformers in this time included St. Peter Damian (who wrote against various forms of sodomite perversions among clergy, including what we would today call homosexuality and pedophilia), and St. Gregory VII who imposed greater adherence to existing laws including clerical celibacy.
We also dealt with it again during and after the Council of Trent, where the Council Fathers addressed many of the (very real) practical abuses that the Protestant reformers complained about, while asserting that correcting the abuses neither necessitated nor justified a change in doctrine.
Better PR won’t do it.
Think about both of those time periods... how many times have you heard "celibacy started in the Middle Ages to prevent sons from inheriting Church property" or "Celibacy is unnatural and is the cause of the abuse". Those lies arise from each of the respective periods and mark a failure of the Church in her "PR" -- but we addressed both eras of crisis with successful reform, and we need to do the same now. You're right... better PR won't do it.