One of the most vivid analogies of the Vietnam War was the image of burning the village down to save the people living there. As a policy it made no sense.

This pope is currently involved in the same pursuit in order to save a Catholic Church that no longer exists as he desperately wants it to.

As every cover -up goes public, as every horrific wrong done to children is revealed, we see a group of old men who long ago corrupted through thought and deed the very message they were sent on earth to spread and carry on from the Apostles .

They never asked the most basic question: What would Jesus do with pedophiles? Would he have covered it up?

Would he have had his Apostles do likewise?

Would Peter the first pope have turned a blind eye to pedophile priests?

The answer is clear yet the cardinals never heard it . And so it continues, the dreadful litany.

Now the Bishop of Bruges in Belgium has admitted that he abused a young boy and he is stepping down. It was covered up for 25 years

And the Colombian cardinal Dalario Castrillón Hoyos has said that before his election as Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger had attended a meeting at which it was agreed to praise a French bishop for shielding a priest convicted of raping minors.

The Cardinal said that a letter he wrote to the French bishop in 2001 came after a meeting in the Vatican.

"It was a meeting of cardinals. Therefore the current pope, who at that time was a cardinal, was present," he said.

The only salvation for the church is to move far beyond this current college of cardinals and find true leadership. The real tragedy is that there does not seem to be one among them who did not know, tolerate or cover up the rape and abuse of children.

Jesus threw the moneylenders out of the temple for far less.