It's blackmail, pure and simple

It shouldn't have taken so much time to figure this out.  

I have often wondered why good priests stood by and let predator priests abuse children.  So many knew about it.  So many looked the other way.  So many heard the confessions of pedophiles and did nothing. 

So many bishops plotted and schemed to keep the sexual abuse of children quiet.  "We'll take care of this.  We'll take care of Father So-and-so."  Instead, bishops moved these priest, hid them, exposed them to a new group of innocents.  The crimes continued.  

Bishops assured victim's families that they had taken care of it.  The children were too young to protest to these powerful men.  The parents didn't know what else to do.  The Catholic bishop and the priests were higher in esteem than even the police.  And the cycle of abuse continued, fostered and covered up by church authorities all the way to the top. 

But the priests.  The so-called good priests.  They remained silent.  It was more than fidelity to the brotherhood of clergy.  It was rooted in something sinister.  It was rooted in blackmail and extortion and cowardice of the worst kind.  

Here is where the sexual abuse of children meets the sexual exploitation of adult women and men.  Not able to free themselves from their own sexually abusive behavior, the priests who were engaged in sex with adults could say nothing.  If they reported a pedophile, they would themselves be revealed by these pedophiles.  Revenge and blackmail on both sides.  An ugly horrific pact of pain for the victims of both groups of abusive, exploitative clergy.  

It shouldn't have taken so much time to figure this out.  But it did.  It's blackmail, pure and simple.  

And now we know why no one saved our children.