Kate,

You can't compare the Catholic church with the IOC - a very poor comparison. You make a good point on people being in the same position too long getting stale. In my experience though, the Catholic Church does move its people around to different positions and locations. Eventually, as in any organization, you will end up with the senior members converging toward the top positions. Then their aren't many options.

You failed to mention that the incidence of sex abuse in the Catholic Church has almost diminished to zero over the past 10 years. Prior to that, there was a shameful period in some sections of the Church. However it should be emphasized that these offenders were but a grain of sand in the desert, in comparison to the acts of good done by the Church over that time. All Catholics, and the Church in general, should not be tarred with the same brush.

It is worth noting that, in the United States, the clamor of Catholic laity was for Rome to step in and defrock bishops and priests. In many instances, local administrative bodies, steeped in local, liberal culture, were less a source of hope than the orthodox administrators of Rome.

It is also true that this generation of the western Churches has had one major failing: dissent. In fact, one major reason cited for the abuse scandals in the US is the fact that clergy and laity alike had drifted away from orthodoxy since the 60s. As someone at blogdom says quite often (author Mark Shea): "It's the culture, stupid!"

This is an interesting article to read:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/118/story_11868_1.html

Strangely enough, the way it worked (in the US at least) before the scandals was that each diocese was left to its own devices in dealing with sexual abuse cases. After the new national policy in Dec 2002 (and archdioceses in other countries have followed suit), there is now a requirement for the diocese to comply immediately within strict policies set, i.e., report cases to the police, remove guilty priests from public ministry, defrock them if necessary. I am not certain if the same tact has been taken by the Australian archdioceses as a national level, however.

Disclaimer: When I refer to western Churches, I mean the American Church, among others, not as distinct denominations, but geographically distinct provinces of the Roman Catholic Church.