It is interesting to note just how many commentators and public representatives have told us in recent days that while there had been a "special relationship" between the Irish State and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, that relationship is now largely a matter of history, writes Colm O'Gorman
But is it really? It may be true that no member of the current Cabinet has responsibility for clearing legislation through the Archbishop's Palace, as was the case for many decades, but does the fact that such a blatant corruption of our democratic process no longer exists mean that we have become a more independent republican democracy, or does the State and its citizens continue to show undue deference to the church?
I was in Wexford last Thursday, meeting with many of those directly affected by the issues dealt with in the Ferns report. I was contacted at 4.30pm by a journalist seeking my response to an Taoiseach's "robust defence" of the Catholic Church. My initial reaction was one of disbelief.
Our Taoiseach rarely, if ever, seriously misjudges public opinion and while he had never condemned the Vatican for its role in Ferns, I never expected that he would defend or seek to somehow excuse that appalling failure by suggesting that it should be somehow judged in the context of the great amount of good the church has done in the past.
I was amazed to hear the elected leader of this republican democracy, the head of a Government which derives its powers not from Rome, but from us individually and collectively as citizens, fail to roundly condemn the institutional church, but instead rise to its defence.
It appears that far from us needing to hold the institutional church to account and question its current role in the education of our children, we should recognise our extraordinary debt to them and realise we could not cope without them. There is, it appears, no need to question the wisdom of allowing an agency that knowingly appointed men, who were a risk to children, as managers of national schools and as religion teachers in both primary and secondary schools.
The Ferns report is full of such cases. Time after time men who had abused children were appointed to positions of direct responsibility for their education and welfare.
Consider that objectively, remove the religious component and consider our collective response if we were to learn that a secular body knowingly appointed paedophiles to care for our children.
Would we be debating whether or not that agency should be allowed to continue to be responsible for our nation's children?
Would we be preparing some kind of grotesque balance sheet, where on one side we would add up the sum of the value of the agency's positive contribution to our nation, and on the other would place the "cost" of the rape and abuse of thousands of children, the betrayal of our trust and faith and the consequences for generations of Irish women and men of that betrayal? Of course we wouldn't. It is precisely because the agency involved is the Catholic Church that we are doing so.
To be fair to Mr Ahern, he isn't alone; many have spoken of the "debt" we owe the church. Every time there is public disquiet about the role the church played in the sexual abuse of Irish children and the failure of the institutional church to own up to its unique responsibility for that abuse, we are witness to politicians of all hues, commentators and church figures reminding us of our collective "debt". I even debated that very idea two years ago with former taoiseach John Bruton at University College Dublin.
Mr Ahern is not the only taoiseach who feels we should be so indebted to the church. That evening, Mr Bruton made my argument for me when he pointed out that we are the church, that the Catholic Church is the people of the church, rather than its hierarchy.
I somewhat facetiously suggested that if we are the church, then any debt is in effect one we owe ourselves and the issue becomes irrelevant as we cannot "owe" ourselves a debt. It wasn't my plan to approach the debate from that perspective, but once the former taoiseach offered the opportunity, I could not pass it up.
Of course, there was and is a serious point. What is the church and how did it develop the resources and gather the wealth to build schools, hospitals, childcare institutions as well as churches, cathedrals, bishops' palaces and stock portfolios? The truth is that the citizens through their financial support and tireless voluntary efforts resourced the church to be so involved in civil society.
The wealth of the Catholic Church in Ireland was not imported from Rome, but rather is the product of the faith and generosity of Irish Catholics and Irish citizens.
All one has to do to appreciate this is remember the support for the weekly envelope, the extra collections at Masses for special projects and the church gate collections, whatever the state of the Irish economy. What about Peter's Pence, the annual collection through which money is sent directly to the Pope in Rome?
Even when we didn't have it ourselves, when we couldn't afford it, we still gave to our church. It wasn't just money either, we gave our unquestioning loyalty and obedience, and we gave extraordinary political power, power greater than any politician could dream of.
We gave it all, we gave it our all, and many of our brothers and sisters gave it their lives, their vocations giving lifeblood to the work of the Catholic Church.
We do no favours to either the church or to the Irish Republic, our republican democracy, by our continued deference to the pomp and power of the Vatican.
Nor do we do any favours to those hoping for real change within that church, or to our own citizens, when we fear to name the failures of that sovereign Vatican state and hold it appropriately accountable.
In expressing One in Four's profound disavowal of an Taoiseach's comments last week, our sense of outrage was obviously informed in the first place by our work with those who have themselves been victims of sexual abuse.
It is, however, my view that this issue is important to all Irish citizens. The development of a relationship between this State and all of the churches, which firstly recognises the integrity and independence of the State, while also valuing and respecting the contribution of religious bodies, is essential if we are to fulfil the vision of the Republic we aspire to be.
When I meet Bertie Ahern on Thursday I will not be approaching this issue as someone personally hurt by his comments, but as a citizen of this State who passionately believes that the first duty of our elected representatives is to the Irish State, rather than to their personal faiths, or to other sovereign states.
The true indication of the still enmeshed relationship between the State and Catholic Church is evident when our elected representatives, of many parties, feel the need to speak of our collective indebtedness to the church rather than name the betrayal of our faith, our generosity and our loyalty freely given to it.
That our Taoiseach remembered only the contribution of the church to the life of the state rather than the contribution of this society, this State through its citizens, to the church, speaks volumes.
It shows the deference with which we still approach our relationship with Rome in particular.
How else do we explain why the ambassador of that State, the Papal Nuncio, has not been called into the Department of Foreign Affairs to explain the lack from response of Rome to the recent Ferns report?
This nation was founded upon the aspirations of the 1916 proclamation of independence. That noble and visionary document dreams of a republican democracy that "cherished all the children of the nation equally".
While we have undoubtedly achieved extraordinary economic success, can we say that we have realised that dream? Or is it true that something slipped between revolution and nationhood to produce less than adequate constitutional and legal underpinning of that core value of the republican vision?
While we collectively wallow in self-realised economic success, the revelations of the Ferns report shatter any national self-delusion that we are masters of our own destiny. Wolfe Tone dreamt not of a Catholic democracy but rather a republican one. It is surely incumbent upon us all as citizens to finally realise our republican dream.
Colm O'Gorman is director of One in Four, which provides support to people who have been sexually abused.