There just isn't the same amount of shame involved in child molestation or homosexual predation any more -- the sort of shame that caused people not to come forward for decades. And this story went public in the early 80s. Anybody who has waited until now to come forward has a high hurdle of suspicion to overcome.
We had a case in Atlanta in the early 90s where the public bus co. (MARTA) suspected that they were getting a lot of false personal injury claims in bus accidents. So they staged a bus wreck in the middle of downtown and filmed the whole thing. About 100 people wound up claiming they had been injured in the "wreck" -- some even climbed on the bus and claimed they were injured. I think they had them all arrested, and PI claims declined for awhile after that . . . .
That’s not what happened here. The judge broke precedent and declared the statute of limitations could be disregarded for window of time, so what is the point of a law if an anti-Christian judge can arbitrarily change it? The courts did everything possible to make the publicity and the cases come out against the Church. Then, the diocese did not challenge ANY accusation, even though a few priests vehemently proclaimed their innocence. One actually, with the support of friends, offering pages and pages of testimony and logistical proof that his accusers were lying and in fact the places and dates they used the priest was elsewhere. The diocese settled all cases, giving on average almost 1 million dollars per claimant, without the accusers having to offer any testimony. The diocese has done nothing to clear the good names of the innocent priests, except put in parentheses next to their names in the final report “claims innocence”.