Frankly you have read intent in to my post that was not there. My intention was to simply explain simple human behavior. The Church moved Offending Priest around because they could.
They did not change their behavior because they were not forced to.
In my post I never said that what they did was correct or moral. I never said that the Church was being picked on. What I did say was that this behavior occurs in other Churches at the same frequency but because the Church is a bigger target that it is publicized more frequently. If that sounds like saying the Church is picked on, well any organization that stands up for moral values is picked on today, especially when it is caught acting immorally.
My intention was to point out that any large old entrenched organization (especially one that is self policing which the Catholic Church was for centuries) will not change its ways of doing thing unless forced to do so by some outside entity.
Explaining behavior is not the same has defending it. I find the Churches behavior appalling in the case of protecting pedophiles. What is particularly appalling is that they have sent these pedophiles away to monasteries for treatment declared them cured and then sent off to new parishes and not warned the Priest at the new parish of their past. This permitted the pederast free reign to offend again.
No the Church deserves to be reprimanded for this behavior. But also you must be aware that this behavior was not limited to the Catholic Church it happened in many other organizations that had an interest in preserving their professions reputation for respectability (I pointed out teachers).
I hope you do not believe that this sudden rash of teachers being accused of molesting children is some new epidemic.
The whole teacher molestation issue never occurred at the levels it is now. It is epidemic. I have never seen the number of cases that have been occurring as they are now. Teachers were not having babies with their kids and then marrying them and being turned into celebrities (Mary Kay LeTerneau). You cannot believe that to be true. Certainly not the number of women who are doing it now. They are putting away record numbers of male and female teachers. The focus is full and bright on this profession right now, and it’s not hard to find them.
The sexual revolution of the 1960s and beyond (which made everyone losers) along with an atheistic/evolutionary hardening in the schools have these teachers (grown up and through such a system) not having any moral problems with going after kids. The difference is that teachers have no protection of the place they work for (like the church). They don’t shuffle teachers around from place to place. If the parents file a complaint, it’s to the police, not the school. The police and courts get involved against the individual teacher. The schools will distance themselves so fast from that teacher it’ll make your head spin.
So you are comparing apples and oranges.
I also reject your claim it occurs at the same rates in other churches. I would like to see proof for that statement. Other denominations are not structured centrally like the Roman church, and have the power to appoint and remove their pastors and do not need permission to remove an offending pastor. Any pastor who does that will not have an easy time getting another church in his denomination. First he will be removed, and if he is guilty, will go to jail. He will no longer be a pastor and there is no way he would ever be in charge of a church again.
There is no system in place in other denominations to hide and shuffle a pastor around like the Roman church.
Of course not every denomination has a problem with homosexuality, so there may be places that might go to bat for a homosexual priest, or even embrace them. However I do not count these denominations as Orthodox on this issue and they are not capable of correcting the problem because they say there is no problem.
The other factor you gloss over is that the character of men available to the Roman church is not the same as in other denominations that allow pastors to be family men. The Roman church has misunderstood Paul’s writings and turned them into a requirement, rather than Paul simply saying that if one has the gift of celibacy to stay celibate - however most do not, and in those cases, it is better to be married than burn in lust (and do what these priests do). the fact they want to have sex with something shows they do not have the gift of celibacy and they should be married. The first “Pope” was married - Peter and his mother-in-law are mentioned in the Bible. You limit the field of potential pastors by forcing them to celibacy (and therefore eliminating “most” candidates). Obviously not all are ommitted because they wind up having sex with nuns, women, other men, or children.
Again, waiting for your list of organizations that have been doing the same thing the Roman church has for hundreds of years and also getting away with it.