Some things are really complicated, but this isn’t:
People who misuse their overriding social, legal, and/or economic power to abuse others–boys, girls, animals, whatever–are scum.
People who cover up those actions and thus enable future crimes are complicit in them.
That’s it. It’s not about gay priests, or clerical celibacy, or anything like that; it’s about power, and the abuse of it.
If you’re unfortunate enough to live in an area in which a favored group of people has too much clout of one kind or another to be questioned, this sort of thing is going to happen. It is only when society morphs into something different and more open–in this case and in Ireland, it became more secular–that justice of a kind becomes possible. And so, paradoxically, the loss of prestige on the part of the Catholic establishment may be a positive development both for the health of the Church itself and the society around it in the long run.