My reference to Catholic hierarchy was an acknowledgement of the author's own exposition on the denomination and the rampant CSA within its ranks, yet had you read closer, you'd notice I referred to hierarchy across all Christian denominations (e.g., multiple papacies, across not only the Catholic denomination, but Coptic Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Palmarian Churches), and this is noted in the findings of the very same German government study, which included data on victims/survivors in religiously-affiliated Protestant and other non-Catholic institutions.
That's not scapegoating (to blame one party for the actions/faults of another) but rather an indictment of endemic crises afflicting the Catholic Church across centuries of documented CSA, and a sober reflection of peer-reviewed research, and to insist otherwise is gross misrepresentation, as is your representation of both majority groups within the Islamic tradition.
FYI Shi'i Islam constitutes ~10-15% of about 2,000,000,000 Muslims worldwide, and within this minority, the Ayatollah structure exists within a further subcategory, Twelver Shia Islam (which represents 75-80% of overall Shia) reducing the overall hierarchy to a corpus of single-digit percentage.
Regarding Sunni Islam, "holy men" and "pirs" are self-styled titles and heterodox acclamations, certainly not constituents of any canonical bourgeoisie nor members of any ordained clergy, and the latter are mostly associated with self-interested charlatans, evoking familiar imaginings of snake charmers, fire/sword eaters, and miscellaneous Orientalist tropes. (The concept of holy men, moreover, extends to every major world faith, but that's besides the point.) Like Judaism, there is no concept of "church" in orthodox Sunni Islam, nor is there restriction on any sacramental function. Finally, the affiliation of intermediaries, such as pir-like mystics, occult practitioners of pseudo-Islamic cultural practice, etc., between any believer and God, in normative Islamic creed constitutes the cardinal sin of shirk, i.e., association of partners with God, so as I argued in my initial comment, the creation and consecration of such superfluous, non-canonical bureaucraacies is antithetical to the letter and spirit of sacred law (also besides the point). Pirs/holy men and their works quite literally constitute the single worst violation of Islamic law when you consider the textual jurisprudence, and what they commerce in comprises the greatest red line violation in the faith itself.
Vajrayana Buddhism is similiarly a minority heterodox tradition within the greater Buddhist tradition, though CSA surely exists amongst state-affiliated Buddhist extremists as can be seen in the militant genocide and mass sexual abuse taking place in Burma against the Rohingya, as well as the state violence in China (a secular, officially atheist state) against Uyghurs.
To be clear, and I don't suppose you'd believe me at this point, but my response was not defending the Dalai Lama, rather critiquing the author's overtly anti-theist polemic. I believe his actions, behaviors, and statements have been extremely problematic over decades now.
