Down with legalism. Or: Why was clerical abuse never dealt with?

The wolves roamed freely.
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Catholic World Report has a revealing look by Michael Kelly at the judicial commission report focusing on the findings about sexual abuse and cover-up in the Irish Church.  It seems to me the blame lies not so much on the changing cultural/sexual mores since the 1960's, but is directly related to the "Spirit of Vatican II".  As most people know, during the council and the years following, reformers bent over backwards to eliminate any sense of Catholic triumphalism which included the restraints of legalism, (rubrics, Canon Law, religious discipline, etc.), and for that matter authoritarianism as it pertained to a patriarchal hierarchy centralized in Rome. 
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Failure to implement Canon Law.
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The recently published reports of two separate judicial commissions have shone a light on a deep rot and corruption at the heart of Irish Catholicism. The report of the Child Abuse Commission, chaired by Justice Seán Ryan, found that sexual abuse was “endemic” in Church-run care homes and juvenile institutions. The Dublin Report, chaired by Justice Yvonne Murphy, revealed that Church leaders had put the avoidance of scandal and the reputation of the Church ahead of the needs of victims of abuse.
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...  The report also notes that in Dublin “the Church authorities failed to implement most of their own canon law rules on dealing with clerical child sexual abuse.” In a vindication of the law of the universal Church, the report notes: “The commission is satisfied that Church law demanded serious penalties for clerics who abused children. In Dublin, from the 1970s onwards, this was ignored.”

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The report goes on: “Canon law provides the Church authorities with a means not only of dealing with offending clergy, but also with a means of doing justice to victims, including paying compensation to them.”
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Ignored, abandoned, rejected.
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For David Quinn, director of the Iona Institute, the reports’ findings about canon law are crucial. “What we see in the report is a rejection of canon law by more liberal elements within the Church,” he said. “From the 1960s onwards the Church’s penal process is virtually abandoned in Dublin and a purely therapeutic approach to the issue of sexual abuse by priests is adopted.”

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According to Quinn, “within liberal elements canon law began to be discredited and this has wreaked the most terrible havoc.”
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His contention is backed up by the report itself. Judge Murphy notes, “Canon law, as an instrument of Church governance, declined hugely during Vatican II and in the decades immediately after it.”

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“What’s clear is that an attempt to correct an excessive legalism in the Church pre-Vatican II led to an opposite extreme where the laws of the Church became so disrespected in some circles that it was impossible to enforce them,” Quinn added. - The Wolves Roamed Freely
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There also was/is a strong tendency to reject anything that smacked of ultramontanism - being governed by Rome. 
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