With the wonderful benefit of hindsight it makes perfect sense that Dr Desmond Connell should be appointed a cardinal in Rome next month. Even as of last week, when faint rumour from Rome indicated this could happen, it was thought unlikely.
It was said that Dr Connell himself, who returned from Rome just last weekend, had speculated that Ireland would probably not get a new cardinal at all this time. Such were the demands for internationalising the College of Cardinals.
Besides, it was argued, we already had Cardinal Daly, even if he cannot take part in the next papal election. He is over 80. And Dr Connell is due to submit his mandatory letter of resignation to Rome in March, when he will be 75.
This, it was believed, would not be accepted for now and probably not during the current Papacy. Ironically, his appointment as cardinal could make the acceptance of such a resignation easier in Rome.
Dr Connell is by far the most influential Catholic churchman in Ireland, particularly since the retirement of Cardinal Daly in 1996. His uncompromising stances on many issues may have discomfited colleagues and angered Catholic laity, as well as other Christians, but they have impressed in Rome.
So, indeed, has his competence in administering one of the largest Catholic dioceses in Europe. One of his first successes was in discharging the greater part of the Dublin archdiocese's £16 million debt by the mid-1990s.
That he is well thought of in Rome is a truism. This is not due simply to his orthodoxy, but also to a capacity for relentless hard work, his high intellect, natural humility and unquestionable integrity which have earned him wide respect.
Not least on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith(CDF). He is halfway through his second term on the CDF which, particularly since Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became prefect, is the most influential body in the Catholic Church.
Under Cardinal Ratzinger, it has adopted an increasingly hard line on doctrinal matters, disciplining theologians who deviate from its teachings and articulating its views with a clarity that allows little room for doubt, creative manoeuvre or for softening offence.
An indication of Dr Connell's general approach where controversial church teaching is concerned was his performance at a press conference in Maynooth last October.
He defended the CDF's Dominus Iesus document with uncompromising vigour. He dismissed the then belief that Dominus Iesus was a hastily prepared response to a positive agreed ecumenical statement released at the end of a meeting between Anglican and Catholic bishops in Toronto last May.
Dominus Iesus was first circulated to members of the CDF last January, Dr Connell said, including Cardinal Edward Cassidy, a CDF colleague whom he named explicitly and who then seemed to be distancing himself from the document.
Dr Connell also insisted that, whereas the Pope had not actually signed the document, it had been signed by Cardinal Ratzinger "certa scienta et apostolica Sua auctoritate" (with sure knowledge and by his [Pope's] apostolic authority).
He went further than the Vatican in defending Dominus Iesus. "It has been said, for example, there is nothing new in this document. That's somewhat disingenuous," he said.
However, at the publication of Dominus Iesus in Rome on September 5th, Father Angelo Amato of the CDF told a journalist who asked whether the document constituted an impediment to ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue that it did not say anything new but recalled and reiterated Vatican II's opinion on the matter.
Dr Connell felt there were things in it "that are not to be found explicitly in the Second Vatican Council text".
As examples he said the document elucidated what was meant by the phrase that the Church of Christ "subsists" in the Catholic Church. It had also excluded the views that the Church of Christ consisted of the sum total of the various denominations and that the Church of Christ did not really exist yet, but was a goal towards which all were tending.
He also defended Cardinal Ratzinger in the warmest personal terms. "I know him very well and I like him extremely well and I have the highest regard for him as a theologian," he said.
Dominus Iesus was not Cardinal Ratzinger's document, it was "the teaching of the church", he said. And he defended the cardinal's letter advising bishops not to refer to other Christian denominations as "sister churches". "The Catholic Church cannot be the sister of any church, because the Catholic Church is the Mother."
He was just as uncompromising in his understanding of other Christians. He respected Anglicans "when they say that they have the apostolic succession. I respect the Anglicans when they say that they have the Eucharist, but I have respectfully to say that I am afraid that this is not the conviction of the Catholic Church."
He continued: "If I were receiving an adult into the Catholic Church, I would require that adult to profess the faith of the Catholic Church, and it would not be sufficient for me if he were to profess simply the faith, let us say of the Church of Ireland, of the Presbyterian Church, or whatever else it may be, on any of these fundamental issues."
Such views have made many within and without the Catholic Church despair of any substantial progress on ecumenical matters for the foreseeable future.
However, there is no doubting the warmth with which the announcement of Dr Connell's promotion has been received, even from among those who would disagree with him. It indicates admiration for his commitment and integrity.