Great institutions, like great ships, move slowly. Their vision is also broader. A colleague likes to tell the story of a journalist friend who applied to the Vatican press office for accreditation to cover church events in Rome a few years ago.

He was asked to call back a week later when the application would be processed. The friend had previously been a minor contributor to one of the plethora of speculative books on the death of Pope John Paul I.

He returned to the Vatican seven days later to get his accreditation. He was greeted frostily. He was told they knew all about him. He was told his application had been turned down. He was advised not to apply again for at least 200 years. There are 197 to go. Great institutions can be like that.

Or this. A report in The Irish Times of September 24th, 1992, read: "The future of the former Bishop of Galway, Dr Eamonn Casey, is being discussed informally here this week during the meetings between the Irish Hierarchy and Vatican officials."

A report in this newspaper last Wednesday, August 5th, 1998, read: "Father Martin Clarke, for the Irish Bishops' Conference, said the matter [of Dr Casey's future] was `actively under discussion' and involved the Irish bishops, the Papal Nuncio in Ireland, the Congregation of Bishops in Rome and Dr Casey."

It's been a long conversation.

Meanwhile, Dr Casey's contract in Ecuador ended last April, as the world and its mother had for years known it would. He stayed on until the end of June, then flew to friends in the US. He has left there and is now visiting missionaries in Central America.

He is not expected to return to the US. He is not expected to return to South America. He is not expected to stay in Central America. There is no post yet arranged for him in Ireland, and the Primate of the English Catholic Church, Cardinal Hume, said last month: "There are many reasons why it would be inappropriate for Bishop Casey to be in London". He is not expected to go to Rome. Where the church as institution is concerned, he is a real nowhere man.

The church authorities here said last December they expected his situation to be sorted out by the summer. Now they say it will be the autumn. Few close to the situation believe it will be sorted out by then either.

In their concern with the bigger picture of the wood, great institutions can forget about trees like us. They ought to be reminded that the very hairs on our head are all numbered by God. And that not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowing it. They might reflect that the ephemeral is not contemptible but is eternity in the moment. Then how much more so with a life?

That same report in this newspaper of September 24th, 1992, continued: "One bishop who did not wish to be named said he had been in touch with Bishop Casey and that he is `suffering very much from loneliness'." He continued: "It is terrible for him to feel evicted from his own country, to be in exile from his own home and friends."

He explained that Dr Casey blamed himself for all that had happened and that "while he would not defend himself, what he is suffering is out of all proportion to what he did".

The report said that "the bishops and the Vatican officials concerned will discuss how it might be possible `to reduce his [Dr Casey's] pain to a minimum and the pain of the other people involved' [quoting the unnamed bishop]". Dr Casey's plight, we were told, "will be discussed in a humane and fraternal way". Fine words, finely expressed. That was then.

This is now. The Irish bishops' spokesman, Father Clarke, explained on the RTE's News At One last Wednesday ". . . the fact of the matter is that this has been a major scandal in the Irish church and it has impacted in a very big way on the credibility of the church in general and the Bishops' Conference in particular. So it is important to find a formula which doesn't further undermine - if you like - that credibility."

One thing at least has happened these past six years where Dr Casey and the church are concerned. There has been an explicit shift from concern for his plight to a more overt awareness of the consequences of his past for the image of the institution. That is a feature of great institutions. They are generally more concerned with protecting their position in the world.

Their preoccupation tends to be with players and painted stage, not those things that they are emblems of. Maybe that is why they remain great.

"We are trying to find a formula in terms that are acceptable all round. All this takes time," Father Clarke said on the same programme. But how much time?

It must be said that the Irish bishops are now all believed to be genuinely supportive of Dr Casey's return. They are also helping him financially, and this is expected to continue until matters are sorted out.

And as for Father Clarke, he has been given an impossible task. He is not privy to the content of discussions taking place, but has nevertheless been sent out to bat with nothing more to offer than intelligent conjecture.

Let us do likewise. It is likely Dr Casey may visit Ireland in coming weeks to see family and friends. It is probable he will take part then in discussions with the church authorities here about his future. He may decide to hold one no-holds-barred press conference, possibly towards a weekend, so he can take in the daily and Sunday papers and maybe even The Late Late Show, all in one go. Then, he would hope, the media might leave him to serve his God in peace.

That out of the way, he might take up a post in, say, some west of Ireland parish. He is still a priest of the diocese of Galway. The current bishop, Dr James McLoughlin, was diocesan secretary when Dr Casey was bishop there. Both men got on well. It is not beyond imagination that Dr Casey could end up in some rural/small-town parish in the diocese.

But none of this is likely to happen until two libel actions are out of the way. One arises out of an interview the writer Gordon Thomas said he conducted with Dr Casey in 1993 and denied by the Sunday Independent. Mr Thomas is suing the newspaper for defamation. Dr Casey has sworn an affidavit supporting the Sunday Independent position. The case is scheduled for hearing in October.

In the second case Ms Dympna Kilbane, a former flat-mate of Ms Annie Murphy's, is suing Mr Peter de Rosa, who co-wrote the book Forbidden Love with Ms Murphy, and its publishers. Dr Casey could be subpoenaed to appear in either case, but only if he is in the jurisdiction. It is thought probable he may stay abroad, possibly in England, until both cases are out of the way.

Supporters of this view note the wording of Cardinal Hume's statement last month. It was not exclusive. It just said it would be "inappropriate" for Dr Casey to be in London. The cardinal had a preamble to the remark. He said he "would always wish to help anyone in need, pastorally . . ."

Others point out that there is nothing to stop Dr Casey going anywhere at any time he wishes. "He is a free agent," to quote one church source. But Dr Casey is unlikely to exercise that freedom. People forget how true a son of the church he is. He is a traditionalist and a conservative theologically.

He remains deeply loyal to Rome. He will do nothing to cause it any further discomfort. He has erred. He has grieved over that, and now needs the blessing of the institution he let down. He is the Prodigal coming home, still uncertain of what awaits him.

Friends have tried to tell him there are those in the church here who, like the Prodigal's brother, will resent his return. They have tried to warn him that these are already poised, waiting, with all his sins lovingly listed for public recitation and repetition. There is a worry that Dr Casey is not psychologically prepared for the hostility of such people. That, such is his anxiety to be home and be back in the fold, he has minimised the downside.

But, as the unnamed bishop said in that Irish Times report of September 24th, 1992, "he [Dr Casey] was always strong mentally and he does not allow himself to indulge in self-pity." He is also a man who has a deep faith in God.

Meanwhile, his relationship with his son Peter (24) has become close, though there is little contact with Peter's mother, Annie Murphy. That latter relationship is thought likely to remain distant, principally because any meetings between Dr Casey and Ms Murphy would be too open to creative gossip. This, they say, is also understood and accepted by Ms Murphy. That apart, it seems Bishop Casey may soon be at peace, at home among his own. A chapter will have ended. And life will go on.