The week began with the Catholic hierarchy determined to keep its counsel. The last thing it wanted to do was give the story "legs". The cardinal had a grand time, said some who were close to him there; he was still there well after the Taoiseach had left.

But at several levels in the Catholic Church this week there was no disguising the air of grievance; the suspicion that an ideological battle was being fought at the cardinal's expense; the sense of despair at seeing every clerical abuse and infidelity dusted off yet again and fired back with malice.

"Yesterday, we had the whole litany of Bishop Casey, Father Cleary and all the rest . . . ", said a priest on Wednesday. "You try not to let it affect you but it just saps away at your morale." The tone was weary as opposed to outraged.

That changed on Thursday. This paper reported the view of Minister of State Liz O'Donnell that the Catholic Church's unhappiness at the role played by the Taoiseach's partner, Celia Larkin, was "a bit rich" given its failure to deal with paedophile priests and institutional abuse. That, for many clerics, was where the line was crossed.

"I think what she said was outrageous," said one. "What she's saying is: `If you have any fault at all, then shut up and never talk about anything, that because you have sins in the past or in the future, you can't afford to talk.' Well, OK, would she prefer us to keep quiet on refugees and racism, on penal reform, on homelessness, on the drug problem? She is saying that the church can't speak until it's squeaky clean. But the church is human as well as spiritual, it will never be squeaky clean . . . so what are we supposed to do?"

The hurt and outrage were exacerbated by a sense that the row was not of the church's making. While the cardinal sees it as his duty to restate frequently the church's formal teaching on sexual and social issues, he has never commented on the fact that his fellow northsider is in a relationship with a woman who is not his wife.

He continued to keep his counsel despite broadsides at Mr Ahern from publications such as the Irish Catholic, in which Bruce Arnold argued that the Taoiseach had a political and legal obligation to uphold the Constitution which pledges the State to "guard with special care the institution of marriage" and from the editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette, who criticised him for taking a woman who was not his wife on State visits abroad.

Friends resent the suggestions put around this week that he fastidiously shuns contact with anyone "who doesn't live the life of the Little Flower", as one of them put it. He is not, they say, a man who goes around seeking to be offended. "In UCD, he would have been at parties attended by people with all sorts of odd arrangements," said one.

He attended without comment a State function for Bill Clinton, although the invitation carried Ms Larkin's name as a cohost. All very well, but why did he not anticipate such an eventuality for the function in his honour?

"Naivety, maybe," says one. "Maybe someone from his office should have checked what kind of card was being sent out . . . On the other hand, the letter to the cardinal specified that the invitation was from the Taoiseach and Government. And that was the understanding right from the start when he agreed to go. He was consistent in that."

The fact is, however, that invitations to all State receptions and dinners are on behalf of the Taoiseach and Government; it is the hosts who vary and they were not specified in the letter of confirmation to the cardinal.

Alerted to the hosts' identities only after 1,400 invitations had already been issued, what was he to do? He is perceived as the head of the church and defender of Catholic orthodoxy in this State. He was the star and reason for Monday night's celebration. Was it ever a possibility that such a man would feel comfortable in such a public forum, as long as he sensed that by his presence and demeanour, he might imply approval of the host couple's relationship? Had he seen the invitation in advance, he would undoubtedly have asked for a change of format.

"No one is in the business of telling the Taoiseach how to word his invitations, but surely protocol should be such as not to cause offence to the guest of honour?" remarked a source. "What can a leader - secular or spiritual - do but represent his own constituency? Bertie Ahern of all people should know this, representing the party he does," said another. "This was the cardinal's night. He would be scrupulous on such occasions about not giving a message that was contradictory to his own beliefs."

Once the cards had gone out, refusal was not an option. The fear was that it might trigger a Mother and Child-style controversy. After that, it was down to damage limitation. The cardinal did shake hands with Ms Larkin at the private reception in an ante-room - as he did with everyone. In the public hall, however, the objective was to avoid the photo opportunity they knew the media was waiting for, the picture of Celia and the cardinal, or what one observer characterised as "the Liam Lawlor leaves Mountjoy" picture, the one destined - had it materialised - to be pulled out and reused over and over under any pretext, to suit any agenda.

Could the debacle have been prevented? Yes, according to one political observer. "The fact that Celia wasn't in Rome got minimal attention. If she had been `unavoidably absent' on this occasion, it would probably have attracted some comment but it would have been a one-day wonder."

Nevertheless, amid indications that the Taoiseach and his partner were genuinely upset by the events of Monday night, the church seemed to find itself once again isolated from a swath of its flock, taking a stand on an issue of sexual morality most reckoned had departed on the same flight as Bishop Casey.

Some reports accused the cardinal of delivering a dig at the host couple by his reference to marriage in his address. The lines complained of were as follows: "The church, too, has a profound reverence for the home, designed by the Creator through marriage and family as the deep centre of human intimacy on which the whole future of our society depends."

This occupied four of the cardinal's 65line script (a quarter of the number devoted to eulogising the political authorities for their "indispensable part in our recent economic advancement"), and, according to one impartial observer, was delivered in what came across as a "deliberately gentle" tone. Nor were seasoned listeners surprised by the message.

But who cares anyway? A surprising number, to judge by the invasion of the airwaves, or the comments of average folk in clinics and checkout queues, many of whom were loath to speak to The Irish Times for fear of sounding like "prudes" or "dinosaurs".

A young solicitor on maternity leave, tried to tease out her feelings: "I can live with the idea of the Taoiseach remaining married to his wife while being in a relationship with Celia Larkin. That's his private life and it's none of my business. But I really feel a bit uncomfortable about this being pushed through into his public life, to the extent of his partner being cohost on State invitations, which after all are representative of you and me.

"Look, this is an irregular arrangement by the standard of any mainstream religion or Western country - so why do I feel that in the current climate I have to apologise for even thinking that? I don't believe this is about protocol or pluralism or hypocrisy or anything that's peculiarly Irish.

"Offhand, I don't know of any other European country that has had to face a similar predicament. It's a bit ironic that little Catholic Ireland is making all the running in something like this, isn't it? I'm no apologist for Desmond Connell; I'd be a critic. But I really don't like the position he was put in this week. It's just in bad taste, and everyone surely knows after this week that it's not just your bigoted old Catholic who feels like that."

What influence, if any, the increasingly high profile adopted by both of the women in the Taoiseach's life has had on public perception is hard to gauge. Miriam Ahern's emergence from virtual anonymity to giving radio interviews and modelling for a Sunday newspaper have established her as a presence in the public mind. Ms Larkin's departure from Bertie Ahern's constituency office into a new and lucrative incarnation as a style columnist for the tabloid Mirror newspaper ("Celia Says"), as well as contributor to VIP magazine and to RTE, has generated comment ranging from high praise to begrudgery. Everyone agrees that she revels in the high-profile life she has carved out for herself.

ON THE other hand, she has made what many would describe as serious sacrifices to remain by her partner's side. She has carried a torch for him since she was a girl, yet he has said publicly that he will never marry her. That is his business. And despite the church's stiff formal policy in such matters, its day-to-day pragmatism ensures that no challenges erupt at the altar rails, where he regularly attends as a devout Catholic. One correspondent to the letters page interprets this to mean that he is both chaste and celibate. Most would not presume to judge.

Once publicly confronted, however, as happened on Monday, the church feels that it has no choice but to register its formal policy on such relationships. This is hardly a new or surprising phenomenon. Were the pair to marry, the church's view of such second unions would be irrelevant; it would have little choice but to acknowledge the status of the Taoiseach's legal partner.

As for Cardinal Connell, 50 years a priest today, what should have been a week of thanksgiving and rejoicing has been reduced to one of pain and recrimination all round.

With hindsight, the solution seems simple and obvious: change the protocol and send all invitations in the name of the Taoiseach and Government.