In case you missed it, I am a "recovering Catholic." Let me clarify: I gave up the Catholic church, as well as my beliefs and no longer consider myself a christian. The fact of the matter is, I gave up my affiliation with the church, and christianity, when Joseph Ratzinger was elevated to the office of the pope.
A quick primer on catholicism for those readers who aren't familiar: Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict, was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. On paper, the DoF "promotes in a collegial fashion encounters and initiatives to spread sound doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines." In reality, the DoF pretty much sets the beliefs of the catholic religion.
When Ratzinger ascended to the head of the DoF, the church suddenly became much more conservative, especially with its stance towards LGBTQs, which makes the current revelations coming to light particularly interesting. While doing some research, I came across a NY Times article detailing a priest accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys, many during confession. According to documents obtained by the Times, Ratzinger failed to respond to the investigating archbishop about putting the accused priest on canonical trial for his alleged actions. After receiving a go ahead from the DoF's second in command, Cardinal Bertone, who is now the Vatican's secretary of state, the trial preparations began.
This is where it gets interesting; Cardinal Bertrone halted the trial. Seems the accused priest wrote to Ratzinger claiming poor health and that the statute of limitations was past. Follow the link for the entire document trail, obtained by the NY Times from one of the victim's lawyers.
Pedophilia is a serious problem. No one's disputing that in the church. Allowing an accused pedophile to escape scrutiny when there are processes in place to find the truth and deliver punishment, however, is inexcusable. To shield someone from the process of investigation and thus never give closure to the possible victims is inhumane. And, if I remember my teachings over the years from the very same church, it's not at all Christ-like. Something to think about.
Perhaps instead of accusing the "liberal media" of persecution when worried about scandal, you should actually take steps to handle the problems as they occur. I'm sure the publicity would be much kinder if these accusations were handled by the church or secular authorities instead of shuffling the accused away to limit the media exposure.
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