It is so awful as to be unbelievable. But it did happen, in Australia, Germany, the US, Ireland and elsewhere. Catholics have to accept that fact, and that for too long church leaders allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by paedophiles, who are by nature, brilliantly deceptive. This was an important lesson from the Wood royal commission; paedophilia is often unchecked because of the naivety of people who cannot bring themselves to believe it is occurring. As we saw from the trials of the Sydney paedophiles Robert ''Dolly'' Dunn and Philip Bell, the predators use positions of power in an institution to gain access to children and escape detection. They are endlessly patient, willing to performing hundreds or thousands of good works for every foul deed. God knows what drives them except a desire to extinguish what is most good and pure about humanity. We know also some paedophiles were themselves victims as children, which makes you shudder from sympathy for the tragic child who grew to such a monster. Just to contemplate the depths of human depravity can make you wonder about the value of life at all. But it also has to be said that if paedophilia seems to be on the increase, it has been enabled by the eroticisation of our culture over decades, and even priests are not immune. Why, for instance, should the Dutch be surprised by the launch in 2006 of a paedophile party, the Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party, which wanted to cut the age of consent from 16 to 12. Since dissolved, it was just another step in the continuum of social disorder in which the taboos and social norms protecting children break down.

In a similar vein were moves in 2003 by psychiatrists at an American Psychiatric Association conference to stop classifying paedophilia as a mental disorder, thus normalising it as just another sexual preference. It is the Catholic Church that has been most vocal about the breakdown of moral order, from paedophilia to abortion. And this has made it a target of those who object to moralising they regard as an infringement of their freedoms. But it is no use saying paedophilia exists everywhere else even though it does, because the church is meant to be better. And defensive pronouncements from the Vatican and other church leaders have been needlessly provocative diversions - one has linked homosexuality and paedophilia and another claimed the church is being attacked because it is anti-abortion. This is not helpful. Nor is attacking the media. The Pope may have made mistakes, but his letter to Irish Catholics last month could not have been more frank, humbly penitent, or condemnatory of predator priests and the bishops who failed to stop them. To the victims, he wrote: ''You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen . . . It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel.''

To the abusive priests he wrote: ''You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals.'' Yet the baying from atheists and fellow travellers for the biggest scalp of all has only escalated. The process is not unfamiliar to people who have lived under communist rule when destruction of the church was a goal. Professor Piotr Jaroszynski from Poland's Catholic University of Lublin has written in the Catholic country's mass newspaper that the offensive against the Pope is recognisable particularly to Poles who lived under communist rule. ''It has elements that have been very well planned, rational to the extreme, but at the same time there is a singular hatred for Catholicism hidden under concern for victim.'' The struggle against religion has taken the form of a new religion. Its new priests ''find their greatest ideological enemies in priests, religious brothers, and sisters. They cannot physically destroy them (as was done in communist countries), so they try other methods.''

Loading What is the motive: to destroy the credibility of the strongest moral voice left? Would the world be a better place without the Catholic Church? Without Christianity? That is the end point of this game, which should frighten everyone, whether religious or not. devinemiranda@hotmail.com