The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ended last Friday. You may not have noticed. Don't worry - most people didn't notice either. Nor will they next year when the uninterested will curtsy alongside the disenchanted once more in an exercise that has come to have as much significance as political promises in an election year.
Yes, we've had ecumenical services in most dioceses, but to what end? What are the plans for this week? Or next week? Or the next? And whither the ecumenical services themselves? Better than nothing maybe but, being neither fish nor fowl, they are get-togethers which provide little enlightenment about the denominations, but allow for least offence.
And where there is no real will to change, that is as much as can be hoped for, is it not? This despite the fact that the theology is there on all sides to allow for change. But then it is so much easier to pray (and save!) than grab a nasty nettle and unsettle the comfortable towards a greater good, is it not?
But what is the point in seeking God's help for an enterprise for which there seems so little conviction on the part of many church leaders? Has God not better things to be doing with his time, allowing for the infinite amount of it at his disposal?
And yet, while those same church leaders refuse to budge to bridge the gap with their fellow Christians, do you think for one moment they will hesitate to advise others, with even greater divisions between them, to overcome theirs? Not at all.
What moral authority have such leaders to advise unionists, nationalists, republicans, and loyalists to get around a table and sort out their differences for the sake of peace and justice on our island? None.
What moral authority have they to advise trade unionists and employers to do the same? None.
Indeed what moral authority have they to even advise a warring couple to kiss, make up, and put their differences behind them?
None. Because though they may talk the talk, they most certainly do not walk the walk.
And what moral right have we to ask that they should do differently? We have every right, and not least as people who live on this island where their hallowed divisions have wreaked havoc for over 300 years.
And we are tired of their telling us with disarming frankness that Christian disunity is such a scandal, while then proceeding to do little or nothing about it. Who do they think they are fooling?
We are living through what has been described as "an ecumenical winter" in the Christian Church. What Father Enda McDonagh, emeritus professor of moral theology at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, has described as "dog days for ecuemnism" in the current issue of Ceide magazine.
"The truth is inter-Church relations are a mess with mixed-messages rife, leadership stifled and people often resentful as well as confused, " he said.
In a homily to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, delivered at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on January 20th, Father Bruce Bradley, spokesman for Cardinal Connell said "we have no right to be absorbed in our petty squabbles, while the world burns." He quoted fellow Jesuit Father Luis Espinal, murdered in Bolivia in 1980, "let us not preach ecumenical love and then go to sleep as another year goes by."
This "sleeping" is the great scandal of latter-day Christianity. Do these churchmen not remember what Jesus said should happen those who give scandal? Have they forgotten about millstones and the depths of the sea?
But whereas this scandal is most evident at the level of Church authority, at a local level courageous clergy are doing what they can to bring people together.
Often this is done discreetly, but sometimes it is done openly as in the joint booklet recently produced by the Diocese of Ferns Ecumenical Committee, which gives details of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland under the title, "Our Diocese".
Or as became evident at the opening of new computer facilities at the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin by the Taoiseach last Monday.
Teachers of the new religious education curriculum in secondary schools are trained there to give students an understanding not just of Christianity in its various manifestations, but also of the world's other major religions.
But Mater Dei and Edgehill Theological College in Belfast have gone further. They have initiated an undergraduate theology course, validated by Queen's University, which is being taught by Catholic and Protestant lecturers.
In a video link with last Monday's ceremonies at Mater Dei, Dr Dennis Cooke, principal at Edgehill, recalled how people had told him "this is how theology should be taught." He continued: "I hope the day will come when students for the ordained ministry in every Christian denomination in Ireland will be taught in this way."
Possibly such ventures are harbingers of a spring which will help us one day to leave this unhappy winter far behind.