Religious leaders can pay too much attention to the sexual mores of heads of government. John the Baptist's treatment of Herod and Herodias shows what can follow. Cardinal Connell's far more sensitive handling of Ireland's most notable "constant partnership" will do more than save his head.
It has, in fact, gained him new respect, and halted, at least temporarily, the overall decline in public respect for the Catholic Hierarchy generally. It is worthwhile reflecting on why this might be.
First, it is a time when gender relationships are undergoing rapid change in Ireland. A social and economic whirlwind, accelerated by a media revolution that plugs us into the mores of Beverly Hills and Monaco, has posed an unprecedented challenge to Irish Catholic marriage - especially for those under 60.
The female Catholic devotion to home and family that typified the over-60s has come to seem almost self-abusive in these times, and women have understandably rebelled. The obviously concerted episcopal policy of restraint in relation to the Taoiseach's relationship seems to indicate a new compassion for those in similar relationships - and this applies to many in Ireland today.
Second, the Catholic Hierarchy is very much on trial over its attitude to women generally. Feminism seems to be bad news at the Vatican, where it is treated almost as a lesbian conspiracy against the Christian concept of femininity. The papal ban on the very discussion of female ordination - which made even many male theologians gasp - has made many loyal Irish Catholic women absolutely livid, religious among them.
And the extraordinary contribution made to the Irish Catholic Church by generations of Catholic mothers seems to have gained women nothing in the church. Literal martyrdom appears to be almost a requirement for the elevation of sexually active Catholic women to sainthood.
That Irish Catholic bishops should now be showing themselves at all sensitive to what might be called feminine politics is extraordinarily welcome.
Thirdly, many Irish Catholics now see positive benefits in a complete separation of church and State, and resent the almost proprietorial attitude of generations of Catholic bishops to the southern State after independence. The style of Archbishop McQuaid - for example in relation to the Mother and Child affair - has become the classic example of what an Archbishop of Dublin mustn't imitate, even out of simple respect for the intelligence of his own flock. That Cardinal Connell seems now to have taken this on board marks a signal advance.
Fourthly, the event may mark a new sophistication in the understanding of how the Irish media operate - by carefully watching banana skins that bishops might tread upon, and then pointing the camera, or starting the tape, at the moment they are upended. The Taoiseach's partnership has been the banana skin of the moment for some time - and the Irish Hierarchy has collectively managed to avoid it, especially verbally, without compromising its position on the ideal constancy of Catholic marriage.
It has now done so even when, by some extraordinary failure on the part of the Government's advisers on protocol, and the Government itself, that banana skin was thrown directly in Cardinal Connell's path.
Altogether, then, we may well have passed a notable landmark in the history of the Irish Catholic Church - and this is a matter for rejoicing by all who have been dismayed by a series of media catastrophes for the church in the past decade.
Perhaps those bishops who represent the Irish conference at next September's World Synod in Rome may even have something creative to say about its central concern - the role of the Catholic bishop in the third millennium. The model of bishop as dignitary, endlessly vocalising an elevated morality from an elevated position, has surely had its day. So has the moral strategy of controlling or ingratiating themselves with the social elite. A far different strategy is now possible, via the separation of church and state.
This same Government that botches State receptions for church dignitaries has still not opted decisively for the poor in terms of healthcare, child protection, affordable shelter, youth refuges and genuinely rehabilitative prisons - even at a moment of unprecedented and maybe unrepeatable wealth.
Instead, it takes refuge in the easy rhetoric of tax breaks for the nouveaux, and not so nouveaux riches - at seemingly little political and media cost. Irish bishops could now notice that the authority of Christ owed nothing to the honour shown him by the state, but to his love of the poor - to the point of socialising and dining with them as a matter of daily principle - and follow suit, abandoning the always daft expectation of moral leadership from the political elite.
Sean O Conaill is a retired teacher living in Coleraine, Co Derry