At least in the case of the butcher he would have gone to court, whereas, most of these cases were know long before the statue of limitations had expired and were hidden by the church to accomplish just that convenient resolution.
BTW, your presumption that the civil authorities are so eager to prosecute child molesters flies in face of the evidence
Obviously the German Catholic Bishops, who are more au fait with the stratagems of the church than any devout member of the flock, would disagree they seem to trust them more.
What evidence? I suggest you call the police and tell them that you have knowledge of handicapped children being sodomised and see what the reaction would be.
You are a perfect example of what I wrote in post #6.
Ironically since 2001 the police have been more attentive to reported child molestation. But you insist on saying that the Church was protecting molesters in a way that, the public schools or protestant churches were not. Fifty years ago, such incidents were indeed buried under a blanket in large part because they were embarrassing to all concerned. Like the legal abortion procured for his daughter by the local school superintendent, or the resignation of the coach who knocked her up, or the mayor caught in adultery with his secretary, or the doctor’s son who in a drunken stupor drives into a house. As in most cases, the victims of the priests are like victims in all these other cases. They can never again have the same trust in people. Their faith has been shattered. And all these things are crimes, but no one does time in jail, in fact 99% of the time there is no prosecution. Is the Church systematically covering up? Over all less than almost any other institution one can name. The public schools constantly “pass the trash,” because there is almost no interconnectivness among the more than 10,000 ISDs. in the USA. Unless a teacher has been convicted of a sex offense, he/she probably can get a job somewhere else in the USA. Out of sight, out of mind applies here. But the schools have a certain immunity. Not only sovereign immunity but because they are more likely to be sued for allowing teachers to display a Bible in a classroom than for “passing on”a teachers accused of a sex offense. There is nothing like SNAPs chasing down misbehaving teachers. We do have the ACLU siccing the dogs on the Boy Scouts, and for one of the same reason: the Scouts are wrong side in the cultural wars and if they can be discredited in the eyes of their suppoters than a major battle has been won.