How do christens justify child molestation?

[Belacqua]

My question is how do catholics justify it. I mean the must if there willing to protect members of the clergy from the authorities. 

I'm not sure that "justify" is the correct word here.

To justify something you have to argue that it's not really bad. I think the vast majority of Catholics know that child abuse is bad. The trouble is that they are too quick to forgive or hide it. 

That's a common thing, though. When the guilty party is a member of your own in-group, there's a double standard. Atheists on this forum who say idiotic things about religion are less likely to get pushback than Christians who say idiotic things. Likewise Catholics who see evil Catholics are more willing to make excuses, or claim it won't happen again, etc.

Again, to justify evil is to argue that it's not evil. To look straight at murder or theft or something and make a case that it wasn't bad in this case. For that, the main example in today's world is US foreign policy, and the way it makes use of the military. 

So if anyone is wondering how large institutions can justify evil, that's the case to investigate.