Rebuttal: Half a million Catholic priests "control" what is orthodoxy for over 1.2 billion Catholics
at most a group could do cover ups of individual incidents and circles, not control the thoughts of this many people, because that simply takes far too much man power.
From wiki:
"According to the Annuario Pontificio 2016, as of December 31, 2014, there were 415,792 Catholic priests worldwide"
So there's less than half a million catholic priests in the world. And yet they "control" the religious beliefs of 1.2 Billion Catholics in the world.
It doesn't take that many people. The vast majority of people in the world form their beliefs about reality based upon what their trusted authorities tell them is true.
As of 2018, there's around 14 million Jews in the world. That's a lot of people to control the institutions that produce the information that people use to form their beliefs about reality.
judaism is one of the worlds largest and oldest religions
backup: https://archive.fo/qErk5