There is a fine line — a subtle distinction — between unjust attacks against an institution and legitimate questions about the integrity of its leadership. This is especially true when the questions involve a faith-based institution to which we entrust the care and education of children.

This condition comes from widely presumed and accepted expectations — collectively, we look up to our religious institutions and to their leaders as authority figures, trusting them not only to instill and maintain the rules and principles of a higher order, but also to function as an intellectual and spiritual bridge to our redeemer-creator — an essential bridge across the void between our human understanding and the unknown. To put it a simpler way, the cleric’s task is to make sense of existence and reveal faith when logic forsakes us.

It’s not a new arrangement, nor is it the domain of Christianity or any other particular religion. Hillary Clinton once described the covenantal responsibility of the culture to its children. She attributed the title of her 2006 book, “It Takes a Village,” to an old African proverb.

Recent exposure of alleged child sexual abuse by dozens of Catholic priests across Pennsylvania forces us to behold the notion in a new light. More than 300 Catholic priests across Pennsylvania sexually abused children over seven decades, protected by a hierarchy of church leaders who covered it up, according to a sweeping grand jury report released in August. The report identified 1,000 children who were victims and advised there probably are thousands more.

This past week, another local priest was implicated, named in a lawsuit linking him to incidents alleged to have happened four decades ago.

Many are particularly bothered by claims that church leadership failed to take seriously or even investigate many allegations over the years, choosing instead to move suspected priests into new assignments and communities.

“Sexual abuse is a particularly sinister type of trauma because of the shame it instills in the victim,” psychologist Susan Babbel wrote March 12, 2013, in Psychology Today. “With childhood sexual abuse, victims are often too young to know how to express what is happening and seek out help. When not properly treated, this can result in a lifetime of PTSD, depression and anxiety.”

The trauma that results is a syndrome that affects not just the victim and their family, but all of society, Babbel wrote. “Because sexual abuse, molestation and rape are such shame-filled concepts, our culture tends to suppress information about them.

Her point is that abused children are seriously damaged, along with their families and their community — their village.

In coming days and weeks, it will become more clear how much damage has been done to the institution itself — beginning with a growing awareness of a permanent tarnishing, if not total loss, of the authority such institutions might have borne in generations past.

Slowly we will realize there will be no quick or easy fix to the damage that’s been done.