And how many hundreds of years does it take to do that? That kind of sin has been rampant in the RCC for over a thousand years. Too many people's lives have been damaged already and the RCC still seems to be doing nothing about it.
It's not the responsibility of the victims to correct the situation, but rather the church leadership, who has hitherto been turning a blind eye to it and enabling the perpetrators.
The Catholic church hierarchy needs to be the one to clean house of their own who are perpetrating those vile acts. Until that happens, it will not change, no matter how much the laity cries out against it.
The direction not to ordain priests with a "deep seated homosexual tendency" has been repeated (the ordinations prior to that were contrary to canon anyway) and today homosexuality actual or latent is a real bar toward ordination. The Holy Inquisition is here: there was a review done of the Catholic seminaries; the orders with incidents of abuse and under modernist influences have been suppressed; the church is returning to orthodoxy. I wish these processes were faster and more resolute, but progress has been unmistakable such as it is. That is because we are the real Church founded by Christ: always young and always reforming. We are doing just fine.
That kind of sin has been rampant in the RCC for over a thousand years.
You know that how? I don't know about your religion but mine abhors slander. The sex abuse epidemic peaked after quite unfortunate attempt to Protestantize the Church after the Second Vatican Council; the attempt failed and the abuse is largely gone by now.
The real culprit in this is the sexual liberation that started by the so-called reformation. It is Luther who desecrated the monasteries and fornicated with nuns. Don't like it -- get rid of the Protestant heresies that shaped the modern world in Satan's image.
As I scan through the Religion Forum I see the same anti-Catholics still decrying the sins of others going back hundreds and thousands of years. The notion that sin is somehow exclusively a Catholic problem causes me to reflect on Luke 18:11.
What is ignored is the real progress the Church has made in rooting out the evils. Prior to 2001, the primary responsibility for investigating allegations of sexual abuse and disciplining perpetrators rested with the individual dioceses. Also ignored is that the consensus of the leading psychology professionals was that pedophilia was a curable medical condition. In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger convinced John Paul II to put the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in charge of all investigations and policies surrounding sexual abuse in order to combat such abuse more efficiently. From that moment the future pope dedicated every Friday (a day of great symbolic signifigance to Catholics) to personally read every reported abuse and wept often. Driven by a desire to clean up what he called the "filth in the Church" he worked "sine acceptione personarum" (without exceptions) to tirelessly to contain and prevent the problem. He has brought many changes to Church law and has relentlessly pursued prosecution and laicization where warranted. Last year, in a Church of over 40 million practicing Catholics, there were a total of seven credible report of abuse. Statistically speaking the safest place a child can be in in the presence of a priest.
Even seven cases is seven too many and there is still a lot of work to be done, but I can say this; every employee, catechist and volunteer in my diocese and every American diocese who deals as a representative of the Church with children and adults must receive mandatory safe environment training, be finger printed and a background check run. Policies and procedures prevent circumstances that might lead to abuse or even the opportunity for abuse. I only pray that all other religious and secular organizations where the actual incidence of abuse is significantly higher act a faithfully and effectively as the Church already has.
Peace be with you