Between 1981 and 1994, the rate of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church dropped 93%. I'd say Rat-Zinger did a pretty good job.
I generally like Ratzinger. I am sure he helped. But the approach past inquisitors would take would have been more effective: establish a tribunal in every bishopric under direct Vatican control; examine all suspects, from the bishop down, for heretical views, not merely for acts of abuse; defrock and shame the heretics; relax the criminals to the civil authority for prosecution. Both the internal integrity and the prestige of the Church would have been much better preserved.
Are you saying the Catholic Church has been actually tracking and measuring the "rate of sexual abuse" even farther back than 1981? And that, within the Catholic Church, it was much worse prior to 1981 than it was in 1994??