Reflections of a stormy petrel

Just one thing: if other avenues are closed off - and the complete lack of any real punishment in the teaching profession suggests otherwise - why should you assume that the priesthood would remain open? The same pressures, mainly bad publicity, apply, and some, such as predatory lawsuits, apply a lot more (since, under American law, you can exact a lot more from the Church than from a public school). What is more, you seem not to consider that the priesthood is a hard profession to enter - including the equivalent of a degree course as well as several levels of assessment - and that the Pope has made it very clear that seminaries and other institutions are expected to positively reject unsuitable candidates.