At What Point Do We Stop Ascribing Any "Moral Authority" to These Ghouls?

Why does anyone continue to attribute any degree of moral authority to what is turning out to be the world's largest ring of pedophiles?

Pope Benedict XVI has for the first time been drawn into the Catholic sex abuse scandal in his home country of Germany.

His former archdiocese of Munich has acknowledged that, while he was in charge, it dealt with a suspected paedophile priest by transferring him to a different parish where he went on to commit sex offences against children. The revelation has drawn attention to Benedict's handling of abuse claims, both when archbishop and later as a prefect of the Vatican office dealing with such crimes, a position he held until becoming pope in 2005.

Yesterday, the head of the German Catholic bishop's conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, revealed he was investigating more than 170 allegations of abuse in the church's institutions. The scandal broke in January when it was alleged that, over a period of 30 years, priests found to be abusing children had been redeployed to other parishes rather than dismissed.

Time and time again, it seems, that the institution of the Catholic Church is more interested in protecting the reputations of its priests and avoiding embarrassment than it is in protecting children in its charge. Everywhere this sort of story breaks in the world, it is the same sordid tale of the victims being hushed up and the predators being quietly transferred to fresh hunting grounds.

At what point do we start regarding the hierarchy of the Catholic Church as a criminal enterprise and begin treating them in that way?