I take back everything I said. Now please take a trip and get your policies implemented.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...=.3474bde3788f

That story is both immensely sad and appalling.

Solid and hard-hitting legislation is really the only way to go. Make it far more costly and punishing to cover such things up than to deal with them. Every time the law is hazy or unclear, it is easy to render prosecution weak.

Is there something about Catholicism besides celibacy that sometimes causes this?

hierarchy plays a role probably

Sexual predators often gravitate towards positions where they have power over victims. Positions such as teachers, coaches, priesthood and so forth. If there is typically some intentional plan behind that and / or if it is some personal trait that comes into play, I am not sure.

Exploiting bonds of trust is also a more common form of sexual abuse than assaulting strangers.

As a lament and slightly off-topic point I'll also note that we often cheer when we hear of sexual offenders of this ilk being sent to common prisons and then being punished, hurt or even killed by other prisoners. The sad sidenote here is that in prison populations, victims of childhood sexual abuse are far more common than in the general population (an interesting and sad discussion in itself). And these traumas are often what leads to violence towards sexual predators. So while we might cheer the idea of child molesters being the victims of vigilantism in jails, we should also note that we're actually traumatizing many victims of such abuses by sending them there and we might be pushing victims of such abuse towards criminal acts and more jail-time.

I think the two explanations above are not as important as the disgusting get out of jail free card Catholics offer scumbags who "confess".