On Wednesday in the US, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York handed a list of child sex abuse cases over to the Manhattan District Attorney, writes Medb Ruane.
The list covered 40 years' complaints against priests in the diocese, complete with details, dates and locations.
Since January the Boston Archdiocese has also provided information to the civil authorities, involving allegations against 80 priests; so have diocesan authorities in Cincinnati, New Hampshire and Maine, following comprehensive reviews of their internal personnel files.
In Dublin the previous evening Marie Collins told RTE's Prime Time audience that Cardinal Desmond Connell had refused to disclose any information to support her case against a priest. Father Paul McGennis had admitted to his superiors that he had abused Ms Collins when she was a 13-year-old patient in Our Lady's Hospital, Crumlin.
The cardinal knew about the priest's admission and blamed legal advice for the refusal to disclose information which would have assisted Ms Collins in her case.
The difference in attitude between the US and Irish hierarchies puts a question mark to Irish church claims about confidentiality problems in the wake of Bishop Comiskey's resignation. If the Irish bishops want to disclose information to the State, there's already a precedent within the global church.
The US bishops were able to disclose sensitive information and they understand that further civil and criminal charges may arise as a direct result.
So many people are queueing up to give unsolicited advice to the Irish bishops that the American solution may look suspiciously simple. There, greater separation between church and state helps keep the lines of responsibility clear.
Here, the enmeshing of the two for historical and cultural reasons means that, sometimes, any suggestion of action by the State is seen as somehow subversive of the church, so politicians tread very, very softly.
Too softly, given the gravity of child sex abuse and the urgent public demand to bring some resolution to almost a decade of direct conflict, from well before the Brendan Smith case to the dreadful stories about events in Ferns.
Personally, I regret Dr Comiskey's resignation and hope he finds the spiritual integration he seeks. He had a lot left to give and, pertinently, would be more likely to adopt the US bishops' practice of disclosure than his metropolitan, Cardinal Connell, who will now be responsible for the Ferns files.
The difficulty is that with Dr Comiskey removed from centre-stage and the notion of the Vatican's power promoted as a stumbling block to making decisions locally, the State has no formal way of liaising on the issue other than Bertie Ahern insisting on a formal meeting with the Papal Nuncio to set up a chain of accountability, and that sounds like fantasy.
But is it really so far-fetched? If a pattern of child abuse had been detected among British diplomats in Ireland, for example, or among employees of a multinational, the State would not hesitate before taking action, discreetly but firmly.
In those circumstances, the State would not be satisfied for diplomats or business people to carry out an internal or self-regulated inquiry only but would insist they co-operate, whatever they did internally.
Afterwards, it might insist on being assured that best-practice codes were in place before licensing the agencies to work in Ireland again.
Let us say again that clerical abuse represents a minority of cases in the huge problem of abuse against children within the State, and focusing exclusively on it badly distorts the bigger picture.
The Catholic Church needs to conduct internal inquiries for its own sake, but many practising members, lay and clerical, realise inquiries will be fraught by other problems, not least the current culture of secrecy, and the debate about celibacy with all the denial of sexuality in any guise it entails.
Better for the Irish church to take a step back from Rome from a while, rather than play the part of Head Prefect for the Vatican; churches in other countries have taken that step without schism or confrontation.
The State, on the other hand, needs to distinguish the realm of crime and punishment from that of sin and penance, represented by the church. It may be comforting to imagine two parallel universes operating in Ireland, but Ferns has brought home the tragedy of what happens when the powers of Caesar and God collide.
The discomforting aspect of the State's delay in dealing with the issue is that it can't distinguish clearly where to draw the line. Stories of lost Garda files and of health boards ignoring their officials' reports are not going to help citizens sleep more easily at night.
The issue of disclosure is central to all child abuse cases: most victims say it's more important than any financial settlement. But in the parallel universes of church and State, how we achieve disclosure is becoming tangled with issues of power and accountability.
New York's example isn't a painless way to proceed, but it does initiate a more honest relationship between religious and civil authorities. The ball is in Cardinal Connell's court: the Ferns files are in his hands.