When I was a student in a Catholic grade school in the 1940s, the nuns used to say “Rome fell from within.” They liked the idea of moral decay and corruption rather than external enemies causing an empire to fall. I think of their words now as I read stories in The Boston Globe about the priest pedophile scandals, some of the most disturbing news reports I can remember. It appears that the institutional Catholic Church, or part of it, is crumbling from its own corruption.

As more victims speak out about what happened to them, Cardinal Law has responded by assembling a group of prominent laymen to help him deal with the public relations damage to the church. But sexual assault by priests is a moral problem for Catholic leaders, not just a PR problem. The cardinal should be meeting with victims and their families, with ordinary parishioners who can help him figure out how best to respond.

As this story has unfolded over the past month, involving priests in Maine and New Hampshire as well as Massachusetts priests, each account is more appalling than the preceding one. Priests lured unsuspecting boys into their rectories and gave them milk and cookies before raping them. They took victims to isolated cabins. They bought ice cream for the little boys they preyed on.

The nuns also liked to say, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” What better illustration than the report of several victims that after priests finished their sexual assaults they said, “Don’t tell because no one will believe you.”

Others have linked this scandal to clerical celibacy, to the exclusion of women and married men from the priesthood, and to the fear and ignorance perpetrated by Catholic teachings on sexuality.

Many other factors need to be considered, too. I have no doubt that most of the priests who are now being named and removed from their parishes were themselves sexually abused as children, probably by priests. They, too, are victims. Also, for some men, the priesthood is an appallingly lonely way of life. They are cut off not only from healthy sexual expression but also from their emotions. The emotional distance in many Irish-American families and the tyranny of patriarchs and matriarchs in some of these families may also be a factor leading to sexual crimes against children. Other Catholic children grow up in unhealthy emotional environments, but I know from my own experience that Irish-American children are especially damaged by sexual repression, guilt, fear of authoritarian adults and excessive reverence for priests.

Ever since stories about molestation of children by priests began to appear 20 years ago, it has been possible to view this crime as unusual. The Globe series is shocking because it reveals that sexual assaults on children by priests are part of the fabric of the church. Even though most priests are not sexual predators, we know now that many are, and that their crimes have been covered up for decades. Only when church leaders are able to acknowledge that their customs and institutions fostered sexual abuse of children will reform be possible.

I left the Catholic Church so many years ago that I thought nothing would make me feel any connection to it, except perhaps the ordination of women. Strangely, after weeks of reading the Globe stories about pedophile priests, I feel empathy for the perpetrators as well as for the victims (I do not equate their suffering). At this time of disgrace for the church, I want to acknowledge the good work of many priests, and I do not want the pursuit of pedophile priests to turn into a witch hunt.

At the same time, I hope the coverup will end and that every single victim of a priest will receive enough money for long-term therapy. Church officials must acknowledge publicly that no compensation is adequate for the crime of sexual abuse of children because in many cases, the damage is life-long and irreparable.

Margaret Cruikshank, of Corea, attended Catholic schools for 22 years.