The Church tried to cover it up to prevent public scandal, and embarassment, and frankly, half the bishops were homosexuals themselves, and were thus compromised.
This is the other half of the equation. The Church has a homosexual priest problem. Homosexuals in the priesthood did what (some) homosexuals are wont to do, they engaged in chicken hawking.
And since a large fraction of the bishops were also homosexual, and a mutual blackmail system naturally existed among the whole Lavender Mafia, the bishops engaged in consistently covering it up.
Again, its primarily a homosexual problem.