Every so often, an aspect of invisible Ireland pops into view, an Ireland that allegedly no longer exists. In recent times two examples have been the success of the Glenstal Book of Prayer and the visit of the relics of St Therese.
The Glenstal book is by no means the first religious bestseller in Ireland, but what distinguishes it is that it is basically a traditional prayer-book. Even though the rosary sits comfortably alongside Emily Dickinson, the book is not terribly different from those found in nearly every Irish household a generation ago.
Perhaps young people reared on spontaneous prayer have rediscovered the comfort of phrases that seep into the consciousness after much repetition. Or maybe it is the Glenstal name, the Irish slant evident in the prayers in Irish. Whatever it is, shops cannot keep the book in stock.
An astonishing three million people turned out to venerate the relics of St Therese. Even allowing that some people attended more than one venue, these are amazing figures. It all happened quietly and without fuss, a few additional traffic jams the only evidence that something unusual was going on.
I went along to my local Carmelite convent with three noisy children at about 10 at night, and was struck both by the slowmoving queue's indulgence of the children's antics and by the quiet reverence among those waiting in the grounds. There was a great mix of ages, including many young people and thirtysomethings.
None of this fits an allegedly secularised Ireland. Some wonder if it signals a religious revival. I am more inclined to see it as evidence of a religious consciousness that never went away.
So is everything all right then, in the Roman Catholic Church, if millions turn out to venerate St Therese? Not really, or maybe not necessarily.
The Glenstal prayer-book and the visit of the relics, though highly distinct phenomena, have one thing in common: they are both about prayer, about communication and relationship with the divine.
It is clear from the paucity of coverage, and indeed analysis, that such aspects of religion make some journalists uncomfortable. There were some honourable exceptions, RTE's Liveline and Nationwide, [RO ]to mention just two.
Most of the time religion gets covered only when it can be treated like politics - when there is conflict, or where unusually strong personalities are involved. In one sense that is understandable, but in another it creates an unbalanced picture of the reality of religion in ordinary people's lives. Just because it does not appear on the media's radar except when there is bad news does not mean that religion no longer plays an important part in Irish people's lives.
Being fed a relentless diet of the decline of religion's importance can, however, affect believers. It reinforces the idea that religion is a purely private thing and weakens the communitarian bond. This suits the agenda of secularists who, while using the rhetoric of pluralism, want to deny religion any role in the public sphere.
That agenda is the antithesis of pluralism. Religion should be able to make its case just as secularism does, so each may be judged on its merits.
So is it all external factors that are the problem in the Catholic Church, hostile or uncomprehending media and an active elite pushing secularism? It would be comforting if that were true.
Something like the visit of the relics of Therese makes many church people uncomfortable, too; it seems too medieval, too smacking of superstition. It does not fit their image of modern Irish Catholicism.
Maybe that is the kernel of the problem. What exactly should the function of a church be in the 21st century? The bald answer is, the same as in the first century - spreading the words and the way of life of Jesus Christ and helping people to live as a community that has a positive effect on society.
Such sentiments are likely to send media people and many church people scrambling backwards in alarm. You can see the F-word forming in their minds - fundamentalism. It's as if there were only two alternatives: an oppressive Catholic state that imposes its views and a politely accommodating church that bothers nobody and quietly retreats into the corner reserved for it.
The significance of both the Glenstal book and the visit of the relics is that people are hungry for an experience of prayer. That need is patently not being filled by what people are experiencing in parish churches.
An odd side-effect of Vatican Two, surely not intended, was the downgrading of rituals and the sensually appealing aspects of Catholicism; devotions and processions quietly dispensed with. Yet John McGahern, a man with more valid reason than most to be bitter about the church, said in an interview in Studies recently that the mysticism of Catholicism with which he grew up had played a crucial role in feeding his imagination.
Feeding the spirit and the imagination is what religion should be about, but not only that. Religion should not only comfort but also challenge. There is an old cliche that prayer should aim not to change God but to change ourselves.
The Catholic Church has been rocked by scandals and has lost a great deal of temporal power. The ensuing humility is, however, precisely what is needed to offer an alternative vision to materialism.
Even our brief experience of national wealth has shown that wealth can have a depressing downside. The churches should be the ones to remind us that the best way to celebrate our new-found riches is to build a more inclusive society. They should quietly remind us that wealth is not God and neither is science.
As we tamper more and more with the fundamental processes of life through cloning and genetic manipulation, the churches have to stand for different values. Some won't like it. That's all right. After all, the Founder got the death penalty for his views.
bobrien@irish-times.ie