Clericalism might be at the root of cover-ups but is it as the root of the actual offenses? My theory is much simpler: lots of clerics act out their sexuality belatedly and without savvy, so in the case of gay clerics (a majority perhaps) they may reach out to the objects nearest to hand, namely male teenagers. It's much the same as the case with professors in Oxford and Cambridge when they had to be celibate: a huge proportion were gay and their object of desire, inevitably, was found among the student body. (Or perhaps the same thing extends to public schools back then.)