The failure of the Irish Catholic hierarchy to
prevent the Dail passing abortion legislation is a moment to reassess
the role of religion in Irish society.
The hierarchy ought to have exercised prudent judgement in
politics on this occasion, just as the best bishops have done
historically. 
Pope Francis exercised such judgment by ensuring that the canonisation of Pope John Paul II did not proceed last week without that of "the good pope" John XXIII also taking place.
The papacy of John Paul II became both an instrument and a symbol of a particular attitude towards the church that contradicted the universality that is the literal meaning of the word 'catholic'.
Irish bishops should also have learned from the bad example of the US hierarchy, who have scandalised people by allowing their church to be aligned with one side in culture wars that divide people ideologically on matters such as abortion and gay marriage but that are ultimately not spiritual.
In last year's US elections, some bishops appeared to oppose the re-election of Barack Obama because of his policy on the provision of contraception services.
In the end he was elected by the key votes of Catholic Hispanic-Americans who treated their bishops as irrelevant, much as Irish Catholics have ignored bishops here in respect to contraception and abortion.
The Vatican's stance on the sacredness of human life allows no exceptions on abortion even when a woman's life is at risk, yet it allows US bishops (for example) not to take the same absolutist approach to Catholics who kill, in war, victims who are not an immediate or any threat to them.
Most deputies who voted for the Irish abortion bill describe themselves as Catholics. Most followed their consciences, just as much as Lucinda Creighton did when she opposed it.
Some Catholic deputies actually agree that abortion may be the lesser of two evils in certain cases. Others, such as Michelle Mulherin, draw a distinction between their personal views and their role as legislators in a society where other churches and religions allow abortion in limited circumstances.
The life experience and discernment of lay Catholics is as legitimate as that of the bishops, and their stance on abortion raises questions about how the Catholic Church decides what it teaches on moral and social issues.
Reliable opinion polls suggest that most Irish Catholics support abortion in certain circumstances.
But few agree that it is simply "a woman's right to choose".
This is a complex issue involving at least two lives, where pregnancy is a special state and the foetus is not simply a child. Most Catholics see that.
The
Irish Catholic bishops let down their church yet again by striking a
pose that seemed as politically hostile as it was inept, and by failing
to respect in any obvious way the opinions of those Catholics and others
who disagreed with them.
They cannot bully people any more, and seem to regret that.
In another era, the kind of pressure that they put on Enda Kenny and on Fine Gael backbenchers in particular during the passage of this bill would have seen that party cave in.
The
Taoiseach was insulted by US cardinals in America, weekly letters were
sent out from Maynooth to lay Catholics, speeches were made from the
pulpit, and the institutional church climbed into bed with some pressure
groups that many citizens regard as eccentric to say the least.
By
these tactics, the hierarchy continued to show itself unable to grasp
the nettle of change.
Bishops even hinted at the possible
excommunication of Catholic politicians, but realised that such a tactic
would not work.
The dishonesty and ineptitude of some
Catholic authorities in the face of child sexual abuse does not
invalidate that church's strong argument against abortion.
Bishops are
entitled to their opinions.
But on this occasion they lost perspective
on the purpose and intent of the proposed legislation.
It
would have been better to have had a multiple-choice referendum
allowing voters to say when abortion ought to be allowed.
But that
option was judged not to be a realistic or desirable political option.
As a result, we have an abortion law that still leaves pregnant women
exposed to avoidable and serious harm. It does not seem Christian.
Abortion
is clearly an issue that divides Irish people, including Irish
Catholics, among themselves. But more crucially than that, as the
Catholic writer Peter Steinfels has pointed out, it deeply divides people within themselves.
Steinfels,
co-founder of the Fordham Centre on Religion and Culture, explains why
there is nothing easy, or black-and-white, about abortion. Bishops on
both sides of the Atlantic would do well to study his analysis of where
they have gone wrong.
The Irish bishops would be wise to
learn even at this point that their teaching on issues such as
contraception and gay marriage and abortion are being rejected by
Catholics not because people are perverse but because that teaching
itself is not sufficiently rational and compassionate.
The
bishops in recent weeks would have done far better by simply pointing
out their position on abortion and leaving it at that, especially when
they knew that the Government was obliged in law to legislate.
Attempts
to deny that legal reality were unrealistic.
A very
different style of bearing witness to the Christian message might
actually be of some value to citizens in crisis, hit by a range of
social and economic problems.
The bishops have bigger
problems than this minor abortion law that does not even recognise the
needs of Irish women who have crisis pregnancies involving rape or
foetal abnormalities.
A bigger problem for bishops is the
growing number of people who do not regard religion in general or
Catholicism in particular as a desirable way of life.
According to
priests who have recently met members of the hierarchy some bishops
blame this on people becoming pagan.
One parish priest
put it more crudely last week.
He told me that many people tell him that
they could not be "arsed" to get out of bed on Sundays and go to Mass.
His
view both sums it up and misses the point.
If the bishops and their
church were bearing witness in a way that made the Christian message
seem like something that sets people free, if they radiated a feeling
for the sacred, then people would be more inclined to be "arsed".