My church is stuffed with guys who left the RC. What’s most remarkable about them is that they tend to be real men. Why did they leave the RC. My guess is that they’re afraid of exposing their boys to the priests. There is a similar exodus of men from the liberal denominations for similar reasons.
old old news and typical protestant disinformation
The verified peak of the priest abuse scandal was 1980 and it is has been down to levels below the 1960s for years.
see the study done by John Jay College of Criminal Justice which directly contradicts your premise: http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/PriestAbuseScandal.htm
In our Diocese, for the last 6-8 years, if you want to work as a volunteer you are fingerprinted and have a CRIMINAL background check - do they do that in your sect. It is common knowledge that the protestant gay church elders are relatively unchecked in their preying on the protestant youth since there is and has been NO central and concerted effort to stamp it out.
It a little like the pot calling the kettle black.
BTW, the “catholics” that I am aware of who have fallen away are not Catholic at all, they believe in birth control and abortion, are in greater part divorced and remarried and very poorly catechized.
Again what leaves is the dregs or catholic don't wannbees.
Lurking’
It is an established fact that less than one percent - or around one percent, I don't recall exactly at this minute - of priests between the 1940's and 2002 molested and underaged child. So the chance these men you speak about would've had their children molested by a priest was in itself pretty low.
In terms of sociology, the reasons why people move from one religion to another, or to no religion at all and back, are pretty complex. You should stop guessing, and just ask them why they did what they did. Doing so will help you put the sex-scandal in its proper perspective and stop spreading irrational fears through innuendo and baseless suppositions.
~Theo