Eamon Casey's former colleagues in the hierarchy wish he would simply get lost, suggests Patsy McGarry, who argues that the former bishop deserves better treatment from his church.
Great institutions are merciless when it comes to individuals who get in their way, or are likely to cause them discomfort. Even great institutions who claim their very raison d'être to be the promotion of compassion. The Catholic Church, still probably one of the most powerful institutions in Ireland, is no exception.
Last August the DPP decided no charges were to be brought against Bishop Eamon Casey following a Garda investigation into allegations made by a woman in November 2005 that she had been abused by him 30 years before. The same woman had made similar, unproven allegations against others previously.
In such cases the church conducts its own investigation. The pattern to date has been that once the DPP announces he is not bringing charges against a priest, the church investigation moves hastily to completion and the priest is reinstated to public ministry. This normally takes place within weeks, at most, of an announcement from the DPP.
It is eight months since Bishop Casey was cleared of allegations made against him, yet he has not been reinstated. What this means, above all, is that he can't say Mass in public and this is understood to be a matter of distress to him.
It is but the latest example of institutional viciousness where he is concerned. This is rooted in an anxiety inspired by an exaggerated perception of the level of media interest in Bishop Casey, and also in the personality of the man himself who, wherever two or three are gathered, has to be there too.
It is why he was kept out of Ireland for 14 years, until February 2006, since when the media has hardly beaten a path to his door.
There was apoplexy at senior levels in the church when Bishop Casey spoke to media after the funeral of his brother-in-law in Cork, in 1994. The dead man looked after Bishop Casey's invalid sister throughout his final years. There was similar apoplexy when he turned up among Ireland soccer supporters in New York at the World Cup game against Italy that year.
Cardinal Desmond Connell, then Archbishop of Dublin, said at the time "there is an obligation to repair scandal because people have been deeply disturbed not by the initial revelations of say, the Bishop Casey scandal, when there was a wave of compassion, but by the subsequent behaviour of Bishop Casey".
There was no indication then, or since, that the people were disturbed by "the subsequent behaviour" of Bishop Casey.
The cardinal said that "every so often he seems to come back and tear open the wounds again . . . I know that people were utterly shocked when they saw him appear in episcopal regalia in Cork. The scandal is there. He turns up at the World Cup and the scandal is reinforced."
What this senior clerical attitude meant for Bishop Casey after 1994 was that he was unable to attend his sister's funeral in 1995 or a nephew's funeral in 1997, and that he was unable to visit another sister in Ireland who was ill for some time.
It also meant that in November 2004 he was unable to attend the funeral of his successor, Bishop James McLoughlin. It meant too he missed the funerals of Mgr Michael Spelman of Salthill and Paddy Ryan, his former neighbour at Taylor's Hill in Galway, both friends.
Not that Bishop Casey ever complained about this. His friends did.
In December 1997, when asked about Bishop Casey during a Today FM interview with Eamon Dunphy, Cardinal Connell replied that other bishops had retired in the previous 30 years "and each and every one of them, if I might put it this way, got lost. There wasn't one other word from them. That has been the practice." That should be the way where Dr Casey, as a retired bishop, was concerned, he said.
It takes little imagination to realise why some senior figures in the church would wish their former colleague "got lost".
Still, a majority of Irish bishops favoured Bishop Casey's return to Ireland in 1998 after he had served out his exile/contract in Ecuador. Some, however, were opposed, as they believed it would cause further scandal. So he couldn't come home then, though that is what he wished.
Eventually, the then Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Dr Cormac Murphy O'Connor, now Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, offered him a post at a parish in Staplefield, west Sussex, and work as a hospital chaplain there.
Bishop Murphy O'Connor moved on and Bishop Casey remained, until the abuse allegations were made against him in November 2005, when he was summarily removed from ministry by phone call. This precipitated an earlier return to Ireland than planned, generously facilitated by the Bishop of Galway, Dr Martin Drennan.
This serial mistreatment of Bishop Casey by church authorities is rooted in one overriding concern: the avoidance of scandal. It suggests great institutions never learn.
Who needs reminding that it was this very desire to avoid scandal which motivated bishops in the past to move around child-abusing priests from parish to parish, as the abuse continued, until that very "moving on" became the greater scandal?
Bishop Casey has more than paid his dues. He was 80 this week and should be allowed to see out his latter years exercising his ministry.
Patsy McGarry is Religious Affairs Correspondent