The atmopshere of dissent and liberalism which came into fashion after Vatican II at about the same time as the sexual revolution in secular American counter-culture obviously created the impression that it was suddenly OK to act out this stuff. So far the media has placed emphasis on the "Catholic" institutional side of the scandals while downplaying the "homosexual" and counter-cultural dimensions of the phenomenon. Sorting through this maze can get a little mind-boggling and confusing. When someone says "Catholics molesting" rather than "homosexuals" (posing as priests) molesting, the impression created is quite different. As Ann Coulter pointed out a while back it ends up sounding like Catholicism causes sodomy. Utter nonsense. This is overwhelmingly a scandal of homosexual subculture NOT Catholicism. We're just not reading about the non-Catholic homosexual ephebophiles (as if none exist).