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"What can be said in defense of the clerics who wreaked such havoc? They didn't know better? Their formation was poor?"

There may be a slight distortion in the media coverage of this as "Catholic" priests molesting children rather than as "homosexuals" infiltrating the Church. The question which needs to be asked is why homosexuals (who happen to be Catholics) consider the Church an appropriate and desirable place to stage their perversion. This is almost in the order of unusual fetishes in sexual perversion. In terms of the relevant psychological disorder what seems to be going on is a linkage of two things which usually don't go together - Catholic religiosity and sexual perversion. This is a psychiatric problem which needs further study and clarification. It has been suggested that they are working out "anger" through this misbehavior. At some level, there is an "in-your-face" hostility being directed at the Church, its teachings, and normal heterosexuals. I mean, not everybody who dissents from Humanae Vitae molests teenagers of the same gender. These are highly unusual and disturbed people involved in these scandals.

There is merit in what you say, but I see a super-natural problem as well as the natural problem you posit. The Church ash always been assaulted by Satan, he even tried to tempt and subvert Our Lord. It appears that Satan has taken a beachhead in the Church and is running amok. The failure to properly provide the Sacraments (the new Mass translated -perhaps deliberately with errors- calling into question the validity of the Sacrament, confession abandoned in many places, marraige seen as disposable, Baptism performed casually and even incorrectly) -- these things are a turning away from God by His own people. Just as the Israelites did with the Golden Calf, many are choosing to worship the world and its pleasures rather than God. Is there a price to pay? You betcha. Is there a cure, you betcha. Return to God. Sadly I didn't see many in Dallas express themselves towards that.