Religion

How would you have met any of them, or heard about them? Child sexual abuse by priests was carefully covered up and hidden for decades and even centuries. The victims didn't tell, for the most part, and those who did were hushed up or not believed. Now, we know better.

Of course there has been child sexual abuse by ministers of other denominations. We're hearing about that, too, and some of us knew about it long ago, just as some Catholics knew about it in their church.

Here's the question: Does it matter whether it was just in one church or something that happened on others, too? The abuse was bad enough, but the cover-up by church leadership was even worse, since it allowed such things to continue over a long period of time. We're only now learning just how widespread the problem was and how well it was hidden.