Let Us Prey

I still hear people sticking up for the Catholic Church, and saying things like "you can't blame the whole church for a few bad priests". Here's the thing about that. Serial pedophiles are like serial killers. They are sick, and have severe mental problems going on. It's in no way excusing their actions, but there is obviously something really wrong with the wiring in their brains. They are delusional and missing a lot of the things we take for granted. Empathy, an understanding of actions having consequences, a real grasp on good and evil and any kind of control of their impulses. Like I said, not an excuse, but they are not working with the same tools we are. They are monsters, but monsters with actual documented conditions and issues.
The real monsters are the higher ups in the church who cover this behavior up. They deny victims trauma, they move priests around to enable them to continue to abuse children, and these leaders are not suffering from mental illness. They are not confused or deranged or at the mercy of any chemical imbalance or psychosis. They are simply destroying lives and protecting pedophiles because of an organization and the money they haul in. They are putting church and power and money before people, pretty much the exact opposite of anything the bible tells them to do.
That makes it so much worse than what pedophile priests are doing. These supposed men of God, pillars of the community, righteous and pious leaders, are running a pedophile ring. It's a conscious decision on their part, unclouded by sickness or insanity. They are failing the children, they are failing their own priests who should be getting help or institutionalized, they are failing the community, and they are failing the God that they took a sacred oath to serve.
So I don't really think that the Catholic Church is horrible because some sick individuals have infiltrated their ranks. Pedophiles turn up in all kinds of places. I think that the Catholic Church is horrible because its leaders, people who are supposed to know better, and are entrusted to be morally superior, are apparently okay with letting our children be molested. By their actions they are condoning it. They are saying that the church is more important than it's flock, that children are expendable, that it is better that your children be sexually assaulted rather than any problems arise for the religion.
The monsters are the people providing a safe place for the pedophiles. The monsters are the ones with no problem throwing the children to the wolves, not the wolves themselves. There will always be wolves, the whole purpose of church leaders is to protect the flock from them, not sacrifice them.