Fiat justitia ruat caelum

Here are a couple of theses to nail to the nearest door:

[T]he Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Ratzinger [the current pope] headed from 1981-2005, declined to defrock Father Lawrence C. Murphy, even though he molested at least 200 boys at a Wisconsin school for the deaf. In 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland twice wrote directly to Ratzinger requesting a trial aimed at defrocking Murphy, whose crimes were known to three successive Milwaukee prelates.

Ratzinger's office declined. Moreover:

[A]s archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger presided over a meeting that approved the return to parish work of an admitted pedophile, who went on to molest more children. A memo from that period also seems to show that the cardinal was "kept informed about the priest's assignment."

There is a time and a place for minimizing such deeds as these by Ratzinger and lower-ranking functionaries of The Church: never and nowhere.

Raping and torturing children is a crime and should be treated as such. Justice permits no exceptions.

There's more on this from Ophelia Benson.