All institutions of any size develop an inertia of protecting the members of the group even when the members act in ways contrary to the core beliefs.

Liberty embracing Hugh Freeze. How quickly the Republicans in the Arkansas legislature circled the wagons around a member who "re-homed" a troubled girl he had taken in who disrupted his home by giving her to a known pedophile, trying to stymie investigations into pay for play legislative work, the local ad agency that bullied females complaining about being sexually harassed by a high level manager. The Southern Baptist scandal. My local police department a few years ago ended up paying out six figure settlements left and right for the abusive treatment of black, Hispanic, and female officers (in some cases hitting both categories) and the sole white male officer willing to stand up for them got paid too because of disciplinary actions taken against him, sealed with an officer being recorded telling him exactly how the deputy chief intended to frame him to discredit him and producing the recording when the deputy chief tried to investigate him on those charges.

The Catholic Church is a collection of humans and human nature is to support your tribe no matter how decayed with evil it has become. Protecting the tribe member over the purposes of the organization becomes paramount.