Frequently accused of being "strident" when clearly he is not, has RD deliberately adopted stridency for this article for 2 reasons.
1) Because he is writing for a paper in the Land of Bill O' Reilly and Rush Limburgh.
2) Because by writing as he writes he will retain the approval of those of us whom share his views, while giving an excuse to those wanting to excuse the Pope, thus keeping him in position as head of the RCC in the (probably forlorn) hope that his presence will accelerate its collapse.
Anyway, the RCC has survived on torturing and burning innocents over centuries, surely a little local kiddy-fiddling won't hurt it?
To (mis)quote Blazing Saddles: (their followers)... are frontier folk, simple people, you know - morons".
On a more positive note, the RCC was seriously inconvenienced and weakened by the Reformation which protested about the abuses popularly perceived as prevalent. Nuns were visited by seccubi remarkable for their similarity to their local priest, indulgences were sold with the alacrity of snake oil salesmen. Perhaps this will be yet another nudge on the path to collapsing this unedifying house of cards