In any case, concerning pedophile priests:

Bad people have a tendency to seek out positions of moral authority. Priests, cops, politicians, teachers, etc.

They do this for several reasons. One might do it because it is a way to counter their self image, because they know they are a bad person who wants to do bad things. One might do it because they are so malicious that they know they will gain access to victims if they obtain a moral authoritarian position. One might do it because they love the power it gives them over other people and they are a megalomaniac. There’s lots of reasons but it leads to the same conclusion.

It is why you have to be wary of people who have a position of moral authority. But you have to realize that it is the few, around 4% or so, who ruin the name of the many in general society. 96% of them are good people who want to help others. I’m a gay baby. It is a staple worldwide, across all cultures and countries, and it speaks out a truth about human psychology and attributes more so than any specific group, religious or not. It makes it easy for disgruntled people to rail against any group that has moral authority, but anyone who actually does speak out is in error because they aren’t seeing the big picture, and are biased against that group because of personal reasons. Atheists might identify priests as pedophiles and attach that stigma to the whole group in order to make themselves feel better about being atheist, which has a general negative stigmata (although also uneeded and unfair) attached to it as well.