Accept it. Fix it. Move on.

The recent developments in the saga of Catholic Church abuse scandals are raising more questions and continuing to erode Pope Benedict XVI’s credibility.

Since reports surfaced in recent months about priests in Ireland molesting boys, the church has undergone another familiar wave of criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, as it should.

Although the pope has apologized on several occasions to those who have suffered abuse, he has repeatedly declined to discipline, let alone defrock, those responsible.

Worse yet, he has not accepted responsibility for the actions of the officials he indirectly oversees, even though it should by now be apparent that a pattern of sorts has emerged.

That is, if there had been a single incident of this sort (or a mere two or three) on his watch, it would be more understandable that the pope wouldn’t personally accept blame. One would hope, however, that even if that were the case, he would have the certitude to remove the offenders from their posts.

This, however, is far from the case. Given that allegations have continued to surface throughout the United States and Europe, the pope should acknowledge that, whether or not he is to blame for specific instances of abuse, he is nevertheless the head of an international organization with a serious problem, one that is probably systemic.

We understand the fact that with numbers in the pews declining throughout the developed world and numbers entering the clergy falling even faster, the Vatican is reluctant to become embroiled in scandal. The prospect of defrocking priests must be unappetizing particularly in the case of Ireland, which Foreign Policy recently quoted the archbishop of Dublin as saying will soon “just have the bare number of priests required to have one active priest for each of (its) 199 parishes.”

However, at the risk of stating the obvious, the opportunity to avoid scandal has come and gone. Once a scandal breaks, avoiding scandal is no longer a viable strategy. And ignoring it doesn’t help either.

The only responsible course for the pope and the church as a whole is to accept responsibility for fostering a climate in which abuse is so common, to remove from the clergy those directly responsible and to explore ways to prevent such abuse in the future.