There is quite a bit of rhetoric about protecting young people in the context of Church neglect. However, Church neglect is a small part of the widespread neglect in the entire society, the government, the public education system, the media and law enforcement, to address and correct the epidemic problem of the corruption of our youth.
It is, by now, common knowledge that there are adult predators in every youth hangout in America "cruising" and looking for young people, and very little is done to stop or even curb that trend.
A great part of the problem is that we turn a blind eye to consensual sex among minors themselves (which itself is child abuse!). Once you approve sexual immorality (in any form) and even promote it, the boundaries (including age boundaries) necessarily get blurred. For example, what is the difference in maturity between a girl on her eighteenth birthday and the same girl the day before! And the man in the world who most iconically promotes and defends her virtue, at every age, is Pope Benedict XVI.
The institution which is young people's greatest defence is the Catholic Church because she promotes the only real sanctuary of purity--the family--built on the chastity of true marriage. Increasingly the family is defended and promoted exclusively by the Catholic Church and the celibate priests and virginal nuns we so love to malign. It takes a holy marriage (i.e. a family) to raise and defend a virgin! All the courts and journalists in the world will never achieve that!
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