It is unfair of church leaders to say the media kept Bishop Casey away, writes Patsy McGarry
Good things are happening at a senior level in the leadership of the Irish Catholic Church. On the night of Friday 13th of this month an unprecedented event took place at the provost's house at Trinity College Dublin. The event was the launch of a book, The Bible War in Ireland, a new history of one of the most contentious periods in Irish inter-church relations between 1800 and 1840.
It was written by Galway woman Irene Whelan, associate professor of history and director of Irish studies at Manhattanville College, New York, and friend of the Provost of Trinity, Dr John Hegarty, and his wife Neasa.
What made the event remarkable was the presence of Dublin's two archbishops, Dr Diarmuid Martin and Dr John Neill. It is doubtful whether a Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin and his Church of Ireland counterpart had together attended a public event at the Trinity provost's house before.
Both addressed the gathering in enthusiastic terms about the book, with humour about more bitter times, and with a cordiality about inter-church relations.
Indeed, standing beneath a portrait of Elizabeth I, who founded TCD, Archbishop Martin remarked of leading Irish church personalities on both sides in those times that "probably the only thing that they would be able to agree on would be that it is not right that the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin should be speaking tonight in Trinity College."
It is heartening to witness a growth in friendship and common ground between Dublin's two new archbishops when so recently it was otherwise.
Then there was Bishop John Kirby's compassionate handling of the story last week of a priest in Clonfert diocese becoming a father. It was decisive, to the point, and showed greater concern for the welfare of father, mother and child than with preventing negative impact where the church was concerned.
And there was the news at the weekend that Bishop of Galway Dr Martin Drennan had invited his predecessor as bishop there, Dr Éamonn Casey, to return home. Not just that, but he had chosen a home for him as well.
Maybe at this "wintertime of church" in Ireland, to quote a phrase first used by Fr Enda McDonagh, former professor of moral theology at Maynooth, we are witnessing the first shoots of something new, tender shoots of a fresh spirit? There is still a nervousness among the church leadership and among many priests at the news that Bishop Casey is to come home, which has not been helped by the level of media interest shown.
But equally, and across the board, clergy are adamant it is the right thing to do, not least because Bishop Casey is approaching 79.
The nervousness is rooted in the level of media interest but also in the personality of Bishop Casey himself - a man who, wherever two or three people are gathered, has to be among them.
However, a common perception, and hope, is that following an initial flurry of publicity on his return - and as yet there are no plans as to how this might be dealt with - Bishop Casey will be left in peace.
But it is unfair, indeed disingenuous, of church figures to insist that the media was responsible for keeping Bishop Casey out of Ireland these past 14 years.
It should be recalled that there was apoplexy at senior levels in the Irish Catholic Church when Bishop Casey spoke to the media after the funeral of his brother-in-law in Cork in 1994. The dead man had looked after Bishop Casey's invalid sister throughout his final years.
There was similar apoplexy when Bishop Casey turned up among Ireland soccer supporters in New York at the World Cup game against Italy that year.
Cardinal Connell, then archbishop of Dublin, said at the time: "There is an obligation to repair scandal because people have been deeply disturbed not by the initial revelations of, say, the Bishop Casey scandal, when there was a wave of compassion, but by the subsequent behaviour of Bishop Casey."
He continued: "Every so often he seems to come back and tear open the wounds again . . . I know that people were utterly shocked when they saw him appear in episcopal regalia in Cork. The scandal is there. He turns up at the World Cup and the scandal is reinforced."
In December 1997, during a Today FM interview with Éamonn Dunphy, when asked about Bishop Casey the cardinal replied that other bishops had retired in the previous 30 years "and each and every one of them, if I might put it this way, got lost. There wasn't one other word from them. That has been the practice." That should be the way so far as Dr Casey, as a retired bishop, was concerned, he said.
Though a majority of Irish bishops favoured Bishop Casey's return to Ireland in 1998, after he had served out his contract in Ecuador, some, including then archbishop Connell, were opposed, saying it would cause further scandal for the church.
It meant in practice that Bishop Casey felt unable to attend his sister's funeral in 1995, and many subsequent funerals.
Who needs reminding any more that it was this desire to prevent scandal for the church which prompted bishops in the past to move child-abusing priests from parish to parish without warning their new parishioners, and where abuse took place again. It seems those days may be gone.