When the Catholic Church was founded, pedophilia was an accepted and expected thing. Remember, this is the Roman Empire in the first to fourth centuries AD - the earliest Christians had to worship underground, but when the church was legitimized under Constantine it was deliberately set up in such a way that it mirrored existing Roman institutions in order to give it legitimacy. This also made sure that the families running the church were the same families running the Empire (until the split at least), and to be frank everyone was either being abused or abusing someone in the upper levels of Roman society.
So times changed and people eventually realized that fucking kids is bad, but more conservative areas held on to their old traditions the longest, including this one. Advancing in the church hierarchy involves being sexually abused, and doing sexual abuse, and it goes on for hundreds of years with most of the rest of society not really caring about it. Pedophilia is less common in the medieval world than in the classical one, but it doesn't become instantly morally disqualifying the way it is today until much later.
So the modern era comes, and pedophilia is now widely considered to be a horrible crime like no other. Individual priests are now more likely to fall in line with the societal view on pedophilia, but everyone in leadership positions knows that it's widespread because they've all either done it, had it done to them, or seen it. The Church tries to cover it all up and deal with it silently, but as noted by other commenters the Church also attracts a steady stream of abusers who are interested in having unquestioned power over kids.
So the problem doesn't go away, the Church's attempts to keep everything under wraps only increases the damage done to abused kids, and I suspect it will never go away until the church's power as an institution is completely eroded and being a priest can no longer get you a presumption of moral conduct in the eyes of the average person.
When you say that abusing and being abused was part of advancing in the church, what does that mean? Ex. If there is a 'corrupt' church leader, he may give promotions to people he abuses, but that would be different from a widespread general understanding in the church that you have to abuse and be abused to get ahead. Anything I can read on this?
During the Middle Ages, at the height of the Church's power, the top levels were pretty decadent, and anyone not "partaking" in the culture would have been shut out from advancement. Admittedly it's speculative on my part to assume this applies to pedophilia as well, since any records of that have long been destroyed, but its a common feature of groups like the Vatican was.
When the Catholic Church was founded, pedophilia was an accepted and expected thing. Remember, this is the Roman Empire in the first to fourth centuries AD - the earliest Christians had to worship underground, but when the church was legitimized under Constantine it was deliberately set up in such a way that it mirrored existing Roman institutions in order to give it legitimacy. This also made sure that the families running the church were the same families running the Empire (until the split at least), and to be frank everyone was either being abused or abusing someone in the upper levels of Roman society.
So times changed and people eventually realized that fucking kids is bad, but more conservative areas held on to their old traditions the longest, including this one. Advancing in the church hierarchy involves being sexually abused, and doing sexual abuse, and it goes on for hundreds of years with most of the rest of society not really caring about it. Pedophilia is less common in the medieval world than in the classical one, but it doesn't become instantly morally disqualifying the way it is today until much later.
So the modern era comes, and pedophilia is now widely considered to be a horrible crime like no other. Individual priests are now more likely to fall in line with the societal view on pedophilia, but everyone in leadership positions knows that it's widespread because they've all either done it, had it done to them, or seen it. The Church tries to cover it all up and deal with it silently, but as noted by other commenters the Church also attracts a steady stream of abusers who are interested in having unquestioned power over kids.
So the problem doesn't go away, the Church's attempts to keep everything under wraps only increases the damage done to abused kids, and I suspect it will never go away until the church's power as an institution is completely eroded and being a priest can no longer get you a presumption of moral conduct in the eyes of the average person.
When you say that abusing and being abused was part of advancing in the church, what does that mean? Ex. If there is a 'corrupt' church leader, he may give promotions to people he abuses, but that would be different from a widespread general understanding in the church that you have to abuse and be abused to get ahead. Anything I can read on this?
How to put it...you know Borgia? The Pope everyone hates and is a synonym of corruption? He was the least corrupt pope for 100 years on either side.
During the Middle Ages, at the height of the Church's power, the top levels were pretty decadent, and anyone not "partaking" in the culture would have been shut out from advancement. Admittedly it's speculative on my part to assume this applies to pedophilia as well, since any records of that have long been destroyed, but its a common feature of groups like the Vatican was.