The Irish bishops' two-week visit to Rome ends tomorrow when the bishops will have a general audience with Pope Benedict.
It will begin with an address by Archbishop Seán Brady, Primate of All-Ireland, which will be followed by a response from the pope. The audience will be in private, but both addresses will be made public.
It is believed that, by now, almost all the Irish bishops have had private audiences with the pope in the past fortnight where they have discussed the situation of the church in their own dioceses.
These audiences have lasted 15-30 minutes each. The conversations have focused on reports sent by each diocese to the Vatican in recent months.
It was during an audience given yesterday to the Bishop of Ferns, Most Rev Denis Brennan, that the pope made his remarks about clerical child sex abuse in the Ferns diocese.
The 32 bishops taking part in this visit represent the 26 Catholic dioceses on the island of Ireland and relevant auxiliary bishops. Absent is Bishop Fiachra Ó Ceallaigh, an auxiliary bishop in Dublin, who is recovering from surgery.
Yesterday, all 32 bishops were at the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose prefect until his election last year was Pope Benedict. The position is now held by the American cardinal, William Levada.
Today, a delegation led by Archbishop Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will visit the offices of the Council for Social Communications, which is headed by Irish American Archbishop John Foley.
While in Rome the bishops have also been meeting members of the Irish community in the city as well as those Irish in religious congregations here.
Each of the four Catholic archbishops have celebrated Mass in Rome's four main basilicas.
Ireland's longest-serving Catholic bishop (since 1977) Dr Thomas Flynn of Achonry was principal celebrant of a Mass in the catacombs of Santa Priscilla on Tuesday evening. The Bishop of Ossory Dr Laurence Forristal will be principal celebrant of a Mass at the basilica of San Clemente, home to the Irish Dominicans in Rome, this evening.
It has been speculated that the pope may deal with issues of same sex marriage and the traditional family when he addresses the bishops collectively tomorrow.
Speaking to visiting Canadian bishops last month, he criticised Catholic politicians in that country for ignoring the values of their religion when it came to same sex marriage, recognised by Canada's parliament last year.
He lamented that Catholic politicians in Canada had yielded to "ephemeral social trends and the spurious demands of opinion polls."
Last week, addressing a national convention of Italy's Catholics in Verona, he urged them to defend the traditional family and, in an apparent reference to gay marriage, said they should oppose any moves to legalise "weak and deviant" unions.
Addressing the Austrian bishops on their ad limina visit last November he criticised them for being too liberal.
