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It's important to remember that the Catholic Church's crisis is part of the more general loss of prestige of institutions. Hollywood, the media, politicians, prestigious academic institutions ... even Communism has lost its shine.
We live in an age of fallen idols. One problem going forward is how to reconcile ourselves to the sad fact that ALL human institutions are bound to be flawed. And yet we must go on, fallen though man may be.
For though we may not believe the cops are honest we still believe in justice. Even though most politicians may be crooks one can still believe in democracy. How we can live on this imperfect earth is humanity's chief challenge.
One of the oldest heresies was Donatism, which taught that the effectiveness of the sacraments depends on the moral character of the minister. This has made a comeback in PC, which holds that truth springs directly from the moral power of one's victimhood.
The left derives its claim to authority from it's putative moral superiority but this fails not only because they are no better than the next man but because self-appointed superiority doesn't make one right.
Thus while a high moral code is extremely important a civilization is even more dependent on being able to base its precepts on some form of external truth.
