The Catholic Bishop of Kerry, Dr Bill Murphy, has said he believes "a different and more exciting church is emerging, slowly and painfully" in Ireland.
It was "the kind of church envisaged by the Second Vatican Council, the kind of church needed in the 21st century: a consultative, participative, learning community, where there are different roles but all members have equal dignity and each member has a contribution to make and an opportunity to make it".
Speaking during the Chrism Mass in St Mary's Cathedral, Killarney, he described priests and bishops as midwives "witnessing and facilitating the birth of a different kind of church".
In a sermon at the Easter Eucharist in Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork yesterday, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, the Right Rev Paul Colton, criticised "doctrinal posturing and ecumenical frigidity" among Christians.
He reflected on those "who suffer because we have failed to open our arms of welcome; of the pain that flows from the inflexibility of our doctrinal posturing and our ecumenical frigidity".
For many their experience of the church was "far from being one of Resurrection" more "that of Crucifixion".
In his Easter message, the Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, said, particularly in the context of the current stalemate in the North, the "message is clear and demanding for this community this Easter - we must move on".
He said that "in politics, in religious understandings of each other, in community issues and in personal life, we must move on. The past is too full of the burdens of failure and pain."
In his sermon yesterday at St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, Archbishop Eames said "a new trust across the community is desperately needed this Easter". He said "we need a new confidence in ourselves - and in each other. All of us can contribute to that confidence and trust."
The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Most Rev John Neill, reflecting on setbacks in the peace process, asked "could the insistence that the present peace process is the only way to peace, prevent us from exploring other avenues to the very peace for which we pray?"
In a sermon at Christ Church Cathedral yesterday he also spoke of those who still live "in an overwhelming darkness" in Ireland. "There are so many caught in a spiral of poverty from which there seems no hope of escape. There are others who are victims of health services that no longer seem able to deliver. There are families crying out for more support services for those with disabilities, mental and physical. There are young people sucked into a life of addiction."
He said while "none of this is anything like as extensive as what the people of Iraq are suffering", nonetheless there were many "in their own deep despair nearer home as well".
On Iraq, he said "as we see the desperate mess and humanitarian crisis facing the people" there, Easter faith does not say 'it was worth it' or 'pain must come before a fresh start'."
Easter faith instead reached out "to bring a hope that is not based on economic or, indeed, on any human analysis - but a hope that is based on the power and love of the Risen Christ to hold on to those in depths of trouble".
At Dublin's Pro Cathedral yesterday, Cardinal Desmond Connell said that "through the Resurrection the light of God's truth scatters the dark deception of sin, the beauty of our Lord's risen life repels the corruption of death, his cleansing breath breathes into our hearts the life of reconciliation and communion with God, and love has the final triumph.
"He shows us the new dignity which makes us even now partakers in God's eternal life, beloved children of his family, with himself as our elder brother."