Irish Clerical Culture Problematic?

An interesting partial explanation for the crisis of authority and Christianity which produced the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church:

[American Catholic]'s account emphasizes the extent to which the modern Irish Church — which, because of the extraordinary influence of Irish clergy in this country, is in many respects the American Church as well — was the invention of a small group of strong-willed Victorian clerics, led by Dublin’s Cardinal Paul Cullen. Pre-Cullen, Irish Catholicism was “one of the most ragtag national churches in Europe,” Morris writes; post-Cullen, it was one of the most unified, rigorous, enthusiastic and militant branches of Catholicism in the world.

At the same time, it was one of the most hierarchical and clericalist, with priests and bishops who were invested with nearly-unchallengeable authority, and who became accustomed to extraordinary deference from civil authorities. And on sexual matters, it was a far more puritanical Catholicism than, say, the Mediterranean or Latin American varieties, or for that matter than the Gaelic Catholicism it had superseded.**

This combination was the source of enormous strength for a very long time, especially in the New World. A Cullen-esque Catholicism was ideally suited to the task of building a thriving immigrant church in a hostile Protestant society. The remarkable prestige, power and cultural cachet of mid-20th century American Catholicism almost certainly wouldn’t have been possible without the extraordinary exertions and self-sacrifice that the Irish Church inspired from priests and laity alike — and without its hierarchy’s ability to be power brokers and politicians as well as shepherds, and to bend the civil authorities, when necessary, to their will.

But you can see how it could all go bad — how a culture so intense clerical, so politically high-handed, and so embarrassed (beyond the requirements of Christian doctrine) by human sexuality could magnify the horror of priestly pedophilia, and expand the pool of victims, by producing bishops inclined to strong-arm the problem out of public sight instead of dealing with it as Christian leaders should...

Again, this can only contribute partially to the full explanation of a clerical culture which failed so dramatically to place principle over priestly protection, but it may provide some beginnings of an explanation. A persecuted people tends to protect its leaders and close ranks against any allegations of wrong-doing from outsiders, even if everyone knows old Harry has a few problems. But this went far beyond anything anyone can begin to justify.