Things seem to have moved on somewhat in Ireland.
The church is now fighting tooth-and-nail to retain its grip on education and has been forced to concede (totally unprecedented to my knowledge) that it may be "inappropriate in certain circumstances" to have a Catholic monopoly in Irish schools.
Yet still the church seems not to have got the message.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made a couragous speech condemning the abuse and the way it has been handled, speaking of dark forces within the church "that would prefer that the truth did not emerge", and about "signs of a rejection of a sense of responsibility for what had happened". He suggested that child protection regulations were "not being rigourously followed" and that church academics and publicists are retrospectively analysing the "catastrophe" of child abuse "as if they were totally extraneous to the scandal".
His outspoken stance has led to either hostility or complete silence from his fellow clerics.
Jim Carroll