Andy Pollak (the former Religious Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times) once defined the purpose of journalism as "to bring the light of publicity and accountability to bear on those holding power, wealth, authority, so as to make them more answerable for their actions to the public." Inevitably, therefore, there will always be tension between an institution's desire to protect itself and the media definition of the public right to know. This suspicion is particularly acute in the Catholic Church in Ireland, at official level. The Dublin correspondent of the English Catholic weekly, the Tablet, Michael O'Toole, has claimed that the loathing of some Irish priests and prelates for the media is palpable and has to be experienced to be believed.

Why is this suspicion so acute? Perhaps it is because some reports of church activities are so breathtakingly uninformed of the institution's teachings, history and purpose. But the Catholic Church's respect for freedom of speech is not so impeccable that it can afford to lecture anyone from the luxurious position of a superior moral pedestal.

It seems to me that the media are a product of the modern world. This world in the main has been propelled by the insights of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Democracy has become the main form of government in civilised society. Freedom of speech has become an accepted value. Sceptre and crown have come tumbling down. Openness, transparency and accountability are the dominant emblems of the new age.

The Catholic Church has resisted the full implications of these generally positive insights. The Second Vatican Council was a valiant attempt to incorporate them, though its impulses have been obscured by the restorationist imperative of John Paul II's pontificate.

I believe in particular that the recent history of the Catholic Church in Ireland has left it in a poor position to appreciate the importance and value of free press, both within and without the institution.

The 19th century was a creative period in Irish Catholic history. The church responded substantially to the felt needs in the community with regard to health, education and social services, predating the state's commitment to general social welfare, and so contributed significantly to the modernisation of Irish society. At the leadership level, however, the latter half of the 19th century was a time of entrenchment.

Cardinal Cullen imposed a monolithic uniformity on the episcopal conference, at least in public. When he recommended a man for appointment as bishop, he satisfied himself that he was "one of us," to echo Margaret Thatcher's later definition of loyalty. Gone now were the debates in local newspapers on the appointment to bishoprics. Gone too were the fascinating arguments between public and bishops, as happened most notably in the 1830s and 1840s, over national university education.

The new Irish State emerged through a consensus of nationalism, Catholicism, and middle-class economics. To many it seemed that to be Irish meant to be Catholic. Partition ensured that the church became even more influential.

For the first time in centuries the Irish Catholic tradition found itself without a rival institution to come near matching its own force, so that it became the decisive factor in the self-image of the new State. In the circumstances, it is not surprising that a semi-confessional State emerged. Despite the valiant effort of Mary Kenny to launder this history in her lengthy paean of praise, Goodbye To Catholic Ireland, it was in the main an arrogant, oppressive and insular time, and extremely suspicious of the value of individual experience. The novelist John McGahern telescoped the period well when he wrote "a kind of utopia was created in the national psyche. It was as if suddenly the heavenly world of eternity had been placed in the 26 Counties, administered by the church and those who had done well out of independence."

In this atmosphere the church received obsequious media coverage. Hagiography was seriously in vogue. Church leaders were accustomed to the reverential treatment reserved for royalty in Britain before the tabloid mentality took hold. Bishops were a kind of Irish aristocracy. They lived in palaces and their consecrations were reported in the sycophantic language reserved for the coronation of a monarch.

In a drab Irish social landscape, the colour purple added a cautious lustre to life. Their views were rarely questioned, their motives scarcely analysed. It was a time when bishops and priests could send their pastoral letters and sermons to newspapers with the ultimatum that they be published in full or not at all. Awkward coverage could always be averted by a discreet word or phone call, the wink and elbow language of cosy complicity.

By the 1960s the old order began to die as the consensus between Catholicism, nationalism and middle-class economics disintegrated. The long 19th century of Irish Catholicism came to an end. A new class emerged in Ireland - well-educated, articulate and questioning, even sceptical of venerable institutions like the church.

The church's problems with the media, both within and without, arise in the main from its failure to evolve a pastoral strategy and language that resonates with the contemporary experience of the new Ireland. The church has not the intellectual confidence to dialogue with the experiences and philosophies that dominate our society today. We are now suffering from the relative failure to develop theological studies in our universities. We cannot reap where we did not sow. The church seems out of touch in an age of dialogue and diversity. It is travelling in a new world, but using old maps.

At leadership level, the church still hankers after a world where it is relatively unquestioned. It is suspicious of the secular media. It demands a loyalty defined in narrow terms of the religious media.

I believe this suspicion is unhealthy for the church, its internal workings, and for its relationship with other institutions and experiences in Irish society. Some years ago the theologian Joseph O'Leary proposed a way forward when he wrote: "If the Irish Church could become a place of free exchange of communication, untold spiritual energies would be released. Free speech is the foremost clue to the solution of the malaise."

Such an approach would facilitate internal communication in the church. It would also enable it to dialogue openly and confidently with others, disagreeing where necessary and making fruitful connections where possible. Such an approach, while maintaining their respective independences, would be mutually enriching for church and media.

Father Kevin Hegarty is editor of Ceide, a new independent review, published every two months, which hopes to encourage critical dialogue involving religion and society, the arts and sciences.