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I was a seminarian in the 80's, and I can tell you that the problem with abuse centered more on simple naivete' in regards to serial abusers and the pathology of their condition.

Treating this problem through the sin-forgiveness paradigm was an obvious and grievous mistake in retrospect. In their defense, I highly doubt US church leaders had much good advice on this problem, otherwise, I'm sure they would have dealt with it differently. The church has paid dearly for this, and has learned its lesson.

Treating this problem through the sin-forgiveness paradigm was an obvious and grievous mistake in retrospect. In their defense, I highly doubt US church leaders had much good advice on this problem, otherwise, I'm sure they would have dealt with it differently.

One would think that Catholic bishops would not have to get "advice" in order to be concerned about the young people being abused. Instead, they turned the lawyer-dogs loose on them, threatening them with lawsuits, or paying hush money, just to protect the reputation of the Church. The total focus was on the welfare of priests, and taking care of them. No thought to the abused. At all. Some of these abused have taken their own lives over this stuff!

The church has paid dearly for this, and has learned its lesson.

The Church has not paid nearly as much as it's going to pay. The Church will have learned its lesson when Benedict XVI invites some of these victims to the Vatican, meets with them, and publicly apologizes on behalf of the Church for, in many cases, ruining their lives.

I agree that they probably were trying to forgive the sinner, but in the process they created more victims. For this they must be held accountable. Those who were involved in the coverups should not be in positions of power in the US Church.
Despite these problems, I realise there are many, many more good servants of the Church than not. God bless them.
Liberal media has used the abuse issue as the 'whipping boy' hoping to destroy the relevance of the Church in America. Unfortunately for them the Faith is stronger than the weakness of men and women.