Forgotten victims

According to news reports of an investigation into sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania, more than a thousand victims suffered at the hands of 300 priests over a 50 year period.   Coming on the heels of other high profile stories about abuse in several other states, it is fair to ask if this is a general situation in the church.   To my knowledge, no abuse occurred in the parish I grew up in on Long Island, but relying on the observations of a child who grew up under the iron fisted discipline of the "Sisters of Mercy" is a stretch.  For all I know, one or more of my fellow students was preyed upon by the "Fathers" we all respected and feared.  What this means for the church is a quicker slide into scandal and ultimately irrelevance.   As the 70 and 80 year old attendees of daily and weekly Mass die off, are they being replaced.  I really don't know, not having attended a Sunday service in decades.  Many erstwhile catholics, including some in my family continue the rituals of baptism, communion and confirmation, but I sense the waning of religious enthusiasm.  Marx called religion "the opiate of the masses".  Unfortunately for religion, the masses now have real opiates if they wish to dispute the reality of their senses.  They don't need the intervention of a possibly pedophilic priest.