Chris Hitchens, the nihilist supremo, has a take on the now dying Pope that is pretty nasty---surprise---but a large part of it is on target. He points out that the pedophile of pedophiles, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston

......would have to face trial for his appalling collusion in the child-rape racket that his diocese had been running. The man had knowingly reassigned dangerous and sadistic criminals to positions where they would be able to exploit the defenseless. He had withheld evidence and made himself an accomplice, before and after the fact, in the one offense that people of all faiths and of none have most united in condemning.

Anyway, Cardinal Law isn't going to face a court, now. He has fled the jurisdiction and lives in Rome, where a sinecure--actually he's been given sanctuary, there is no way of knowing if he's being paid---(my insert)---at the Vatican has been found for him. (Actually not that much of a sinecure: As archpriest of the Rome Basilica of St. Mary Major, he also sits on two boards supervising priestly discipline—yes!—and the appointment of diocesan bishops.)

I think there is more to this: his age. This is a systemic problem within the Church. The Pope, when a younger man, had moral clarity at all times, but as he got older---and finally much too old---he lost it. The Pope will be remembered for a lot of good things as well as this one very bad thing. There will be no moral authority from Rome until this crime has been cleaned up and Law returned to this country for prosecution.