On Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics, a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.
How do I come back to a Church whose leaders turned a blind eye to decades of pedophilia and other sexual abuse and then tried to cover it all up?
This is a Church of imperfect people, all the way up to and including the pope.
Yes, priests who used their position to sexually abuse children and adults alike were horrifically wrong and sinful. Yes, the bishops and cardinals who moved those sick men into other parishes or dioceses 
rather than removing them altogether from positions that offered temptation and getting them the help they needed were seriously wrong and sinful. Yes, attempts to cover up these activities rather than to cooperate with civil authorities were appallingly wrong and sinful.
It took too long for the Church to accept its responsibility for the situation. Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged this in a 2010 address in Portugal, saying, “The greatest persecution of the Church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the Church. The Church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness—but also justice.” That lesson certainly is being offered; it’s been estimated that in the United States alone, jury awards to the abuse victims so far total more than $1 billion. A half-dozen parishes have filed for bankruptcy.
The lives of the victims have been changed inalterably. So have the lives of the perpetrators. This is a tragedy all around. Difficult as it is, we must find a way to forgive these men while insisting the Church be vigilant in preventing abuse today and in the future—and in dealing with it forthrightly when it does occur. To do that, we need not only a vigilant Church hierarchy, but also an engaged, active lay community. We need you.
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