It is a cause for both anger and sadness that time and again, horrible abuses are revealed within the Catholic Church where priests who have abused their position and have been guilty of sexual abuse have been kept on their backs and instead of being rebuked and dismissed, have been displaced.
This time, unlike most thousands of cases that have reached the public, there is a Swedish connection, which of course increases interest.
But it is just as bad what part of the world is affected by the abuses that have continued for decades after decades.
What could it be? How can a church that exists to tell people about God's love for them and give them the guideline to live their lives will end up so wrong?
Pope Francis does not doubt what is an important part of the explanation. Last fall, he aroused excitement when, in a letter to all Catholics, he pointed out clericalism as the culprit of drama, the cause of both the sexual assaults themselves and the culture of silence and blackout.
Why was it sensational?
By and large, the Catholic Church has interpreted the criticism of clericalism as an attack on the Church itself and an expression of reluctance and hatred. But now Francis calls to stop putting the priests on the pedestal. Otherwise, he wrote, "the evil we today condemn to continue".
“As a Catholic, one gets into the mother's milk that one must not speak ill of the priest. Nor should one question the church's doctrine, decision, or what the priest says. The priest is always right and is an all-righteous man chosen by God to lead the flock to salvation, ”wrote Dagens reporter Anna B Sandberg when she analyzed the phenomenon in a large report a year ago.
The fact that the pope so clearly pointed out the direction of travel ahead and encouraged the questioning of the power structures is a basic prerequisite for bringing about a change.
But, of course, it does not do any of what has happened in the past undone, although it would be a kind of correction for the victims to hear the pope so clearly condemn both the abuses themselves and the blackout.
The abuses in the Catholic Church have been in the limelight. But it is a somewhat simplified picture if one believes that similar phenomena do not occur elsewhere in Christianity.
Although clericalism is a term that is commonly used just about Catholic conditions, there are plenty of contexts where priests and pastors elevate themselves to infallibility.
Very recently, the United States Baptist Baptists - the United States 'largest Protestant movement, which is theologically far from the Catholic Church - invited to a conference where victims of abuse, experts and church leaders should meet with the victims' situation in focus.
In Sweden, the abusive circumstances in Knutby with clear elements of abuse are getting their legal aftermath. These are just two examples.
Power also corrupts in the world of the Church, just as in the rest of society. And it becomes particularly uncomfortable when God himself is drawn into the power play and his alleged will is used as a pretext for the perpetrator to act at his own discretion.