Of Catholicism and Capone

"There can be little doubt that had any other organization other than the Catholic church that was trusted with the care of children, for instance an orphanage, a school, or a daycare center, had been found to not only been abusing the children, but to swear the victims to secrecy, and then to move the molester to another center... there simply would be no debate about allowing the organization to conduct its own investigation and to impose its own 'punishments' of repentance. Both the individuals and the organization would be up on criminal charges before you could say knife.
However for the Catholic Church, law enforcement seems powerless. The church simply says child molestation is evil, and that through true repentance can come renewal, or some equally nebulous BS, and the church gets away with such criminal acts- scot free!

However even if institutionalized child molestation doesn't take the church down, it has been a huge blow to it's credibility. In that sense it's kind of like Al Capone being taken down for tax evasion. Especially given that the Pope has stated that he thinks that condoms actually increase the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa!" --Thunderf00t