text: Grace,
  This has been a big stumbling block for me from day one in all of this.  Regardless of whatever else the bishops may do (or not do), the conscious and ongoing choice to not hold themselves accountable, in the same way they hold the laity accountable for misdeeds members of the laity may inflict on the church, creates a terrible double standards in the church.  And all too sadly, in their historical powers to rewrite church history, this whole episode will one day be written up as something that happened to the church by external forces  There will be little or no mention of what all of this actually cost the church: costs that simply must be measured in terms of human carnage, the loss of faith in the church by (literally) millions, and a deep shattering of so much of what the church teaches.
  
  I can't and won't speak for victims of abuse.  I could never do their voices justice.  But I DO think that bishops owe not just God, but the church's laity accountability, personally.