The Ferns report, as was noted this week in the Seanad, represents, sadly, a landmark in the history of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It has also stirred renewed debate about the proper relations between church and State, writes Martin Mansergh
The report is a model of objectivity. Most Oireachtas members found it difficult to bring themselves to read through the detailed allegations. Public emotions have ranged from sorrow and disappointment to anger and a sense of betrayal.
The issue was not just the criminal misconduct of a few people in a position of authority and trust, but the shortcomings in the institutional response as evidence grew, and the wholly inadequate protection offered to children to prevent there being further victims, and other lives being destroyed.
There is, of course, a wider context. Allegations of clerical child sex abuse have devastated the Catholic Church in America, and have forced the resignation even of a cardinal both there and in Austria.
It is not a problem exclusive to the Catholic Church. The Rev Norman Ruddock, in his memoir The Rambling Rector, relates that he was abused as a child, and refers to a parish successor in Westmeath being sent to prison for such an offence.
Male boarding schools and institutions, not just in this country but in Britain, where in the past some establishment figures have treated such abuse almost as part of their character formation, often had a pronounced homoerotic atmosphere. Free Presbyterianism had its own problems with Kincora.
The Ferns report estimates that just 3.2 per cent of abuse involved clerics, which leaves a very large problem pretty well unaccounted for, excepting the few cases that come to court.
The State and people also have a responsibility for the situation. Almost unquestioning trust was placed in institutions and the church, with little regulation or oversight, and a pronounced reluctance to interfere.
In a number of spheres, notwithstanding its financial input, the State was the junior partner. Problems were dealt with discreetly, without creating scandal or controversy damaging to authority. The fate of children, a few of whom committed suicide, should have been uppermost in most people's minds. The whistleblower, as always everywhere, was the one to be punished.
The Catholic Church had a moral influence far greater than that of any other institution. Inevitably, people will contrast the rigorous ethic they were asked to live up to with the licence that perpetrators of abuse permitted themselves.
How to reconcile in future the practice of high Christian standards with the knowledge of such aberrations is something not everyone is yet sure they can manage.
Inevitably, there will be debate as to how far such abuse or the handling of it can be traced to systemic faults. The Ferns report refers to an expert group, whose nature, mandate and composition are not clear, being "unanimous in its view that the vow of celibacy (which for a Catholic priest must include chastity) contributed to the problem of child sexual abuse in the church".
Auxiliary married priests have been allowed in England among clergy converted from Anglicanism over their objections to women priests, against which the arguments are far from convincing. Despite earlier warnings of damage to ecumenical relations, most Catholic priests, to their credit, appear to have little difficulty appearing in an ecumenical context with a woman priest.
Despite the difficulty of raising these subjects, a sense has been created that some relaxation from Rome of the requirement for an exclusively male celibate clergy would not meet serious opposition from the Irish church.
It is often said that the church is not a democracy, one of whose characteristics is the separation of powers. Neither are businesses, educational institutions or news organisations. The Ferns report notes that the bishop under canon law exercises legislative, executive and judicial power. Absolute monarchy, before the French Revolution, claimed the same powers. The huge difference is that the church now operates within a free, democratic society, and no one is forced to remain a member.
Despite appearances, the whole structure today depends on consent and popular support, which for the most part in Ireland is willingly given. But people are no longer afraid to point out and seek redress for what has gone drastically wrong.
Despite disappointment and anger at what has happened, there is little appetite for a wholesale secularisation of Irish society. Minorities, among others, would have much to lose. There is still appreciation of all the many positive contributions made by the church.
The French model of the secular republic "one and indivisible", which does not willingly recognise different traditions, has run into a lot of difficulties recently. Our republicanism is both more conservative and more liberal.
One does not have to be Catholic to have a stake in the well-being of the church, which is still important to the needs of Irish society, or to recognise that for most people it is a major component of their Irish identity.
Most decent clergy need public support and understanding at this time.The State, though late on the scene, has acknowledged its past neglect, and its present responsibilities, which it is determined to fulfil.