Is the Catholic Church a paedophile ring ?

From last Thursday's Times :

" Paul Gordon has waited 30 long years for justice . This week the former " pasty-faced and weak schoolboy" who was sexually abused by a religious order who paid off his father finally saw his tormentors sent to jail.The sex abuse case is the latest to hit the Catholic Church in Ireland whose moral authority has been destroyed.

From the mid 1960's St John's National School in Sligo , northwest Ireland was a dangerous place for children.Police believe that at least 50 boys , and probably many more were abused by religious and lay teachers . "

This is just a brief outline of Mr Gordon's case- I will not give any further details because they are too sick and disgusting for my blog . But it appears plain that there was a paedophile ring operating at the school . For how long no one knows , but one of the accused a Patrick Curran was teaching at the school up until 1999.These sexual abuse stories , involving the Catholic Church have been appearing all over the world for the last 20 years or so and probably run into thousands of cases . I feel that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg as victims are loathe to come forward and deal with the judicial system , even if they can get their story believed .

The cases seem to follow a similar pattern .First , the accusations are made and then denied . The church then sets out on a course of personally vilifying the victim , whilst letting the priest continue his work .If further evidence is discovered ,the Church is then dragged kicking and screaming into the courts ,blaming the perpetrators and trying to keep the compensation costs to a minimum .But with each case that I have read about , I have been forced to face the question – is this abuse unofficial Church policy ? By the very nature of their actions it seems to me that this behaviour is condoned by the Catholic hierarchy . Are the leaders of the church also perpetrators ? How high does it go up the chain of command ? I know that it is difficult to comprehend that a religious organisation could be corrupt to this extent but I am a great believer in ' If it walks like a duck , looks like a duck and quacks like a duck ,it probably is a duck ' .

I must stress that I have had no link to the Catholic church in my life and have no feelings one way or another about it but I do have a child and would not let her within a hundred miles of a school run by the Catholic church .In the UK , when schools fail to meet a required standard they can be closed down .As an outsider , I would say that the church has not only failed to meet the required standard , but are run by men with a different agenda than most normal human beings .I would suggest that it is banned worldwide for being ' institutionally paedophiliac ' ( if there is such a thing ) and until it is determined that the abusers have been eradicated from their ranks , should not be allowed to continue .