Of course they are referring to our Church’s homosexuality crisis. As someone who has been involved with the internal handling of some of these cases in my diocese, the vast majority are cases of homosexuality. Of course, during the enlightenment following Vatican Council II homosexuality was normalized in society and for many liberals in our Church, ever eager to jump into bed and be accepted by secular society, we adopted those same mores. When the Church truly speaks out in truth what we know to be truth we will have less of a problem.
You’ve probably already read Philip Lawler’s book about Boston, The Faithful Departed. If not, read it immediately!
It’s excellent, and one thing he points out is that the problem won’t be solved until they can be honest about what it is. The bishops even came to the conclusion that the problem was homosexuality - and then they decided not to publish the paper they were writing and in fact when they finally came out and said anything, they made no mention at all of homosexuality.
Lawler says that the root of the problems is essentially the desire of many in the Church to be accepted by secular society, which of course is done by their having to accept the values of secular society first. In the case of Boston, he points out that this was happening even before Vatican II, because by the 1950s, the Church in Boston saw itself as an ethnic and political organization (wing of the Democrat party) before anything else. Vatican II, with its destruction of authority, destruction of the strong connection with and obedience to Rome, and ridicule of doctrinal and moral certainties, simply allowed something to happen which had been gestating in the American Church in general and Boston in particular for some time.
This unfortunately coincided with a time when the values of secular society became abysmally bad, and the reason that the bishops won’t speak out against homosexuality (aside form the fact that some of the worst bishops in the scandals probably were active homosexuals themselves) is that secular society not only tolerates but approves of it and even enshrines it as some bizarre testimony to how open minded it is. The bishops don’t want to look uncool and - well, you know, judgmental or anything like that!
The problem really lies with the bishops, who are cowardly if they’re good, shameless if they’re bad, and almost entiredly disobedient to Rome.