Arguments the Catholic Church Really Doesn't Want to Make (But Will Anyway)

1. It's the secularism. The secularism in society has such an influence that it makes the poor priests into molesters. The Pope has actually made this argument. I guess he himself was influenced by secularism when he ignored and covered up abuse. Bad Pope!

2. Not all priests are abusers / Only a small portion of priests are abusers, etc... It doesn't really matter what the exact percentage is. Even a few can do immense damage. Anyway, what would be an acceptable percentage, except for something as close as humanly possible to zero? Sending priests to other places where they can abuse again does not show a good faith effort to reduce the number of priests who abuse.

3. Not all child abusers are priests. True. But shouldn't priests be, you know, better than other people? Send your kid to the pool hall, maybe he will pick up some bad habits. Don't they want their churches to be better than a pool hall?

4. People criticizing the church on this front are motivated by anti-Catholicism, atheism, etc... True, in some cases, but the victims are Catholic. Shouldn't you care more if you believe that what was betrayed was something real?

5. We are a forgiving church. Therefore we have a duty to forgive the molesters and give them a second chance, and then a third. This is so cynical it doesn't merit a response.

6. At least it's not abortion.

7. The church is a human institution, therefore imperfect. This is cynical in the extreme. We're not talking about some minor failings, but a major pattern of corruption.

8. Nothing to see here. We had this problem in the past, but now we're taking steps to remedy it. That would be fine, except that the rhetoric is still one of making these cynical arguments.