Some of the Irish bishops addressed their congregations at the weekend in the form of Lenten letters and sought to reassure their flocks that a process is in place and that the Pope will, in his Pastoral Letter before Easter - the draft of which they have seen - testify to the fact that this issue is being treated seriously at the highest level.

It is likely that the Pope will apologise to survivors and will talk about mandatory reporting, an issue which has dogged the bishops since 1996, among other things.

Speaking to a bishop at the weekend, I made the observation that the Rome meeting had resulted in the impetus had been taken away from the survivors. He seemed shocked by this; the vast majority of bishops do 'get it' I believe and want to bring healing to the survivors. They went to Rome because they were all out of ideas on how to do this.

Observing

What I was observing, however, was not the sidelining of the survivors, but that the Rome meeting had put the Irish bishops inside a process, and by dashing expectations, put the bishops' timetable to the fore and removed the urgent 'demands' of the survivors.

This is why the survivors described Archbishop Martin as a changed man - the stage has changed and the bishops are leading the news cycle on this, albeit in a drip drip fashion.

Until the Rome meeting, the bishops were being blown from crisis to crisis and it seemed that the survivors voices, and those of survivor support groups were leading the debate on the aftermath of the Murphy Report, leaving a bishops' conference fatally caught in the headlights.

Archbishop Martin sought to take action but, in doing so, and the manner in which he used the media to do it, damaged his own relationship with the collective bishops and some of his own priests while gaining accolades in the media and among survivors.

So, the observation I was making to the bishop was that what the Vatican has done is take the impetus away from the survivors - the storm is still blowing around the bishops but they have a plan and a timetable. They have also been told to face it with ''honesty and courage''.

The Church doesn't have all the answers, neither do the survivors. They have brought the Catholic Church rightly to its knees in Ireland, and so it should be, especially during this penitential period. Yet, neither they nor the bishops alone can bring the Church into the future, it is bigger than them. What they, the survivors have done, is taught the Irish clerical culture a lesson in the most basic principles of the Gospel - justice, compassion, love.

Leadership

For their part, the bishops and priests who are charged with the leadership of our Church have to take the lesson, in all humility as Cardinal Brady has said, and dust themselves off and renew the church so that it never forgets its core values again, the values of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe that many of the Irish bishops are prepared to do this and when the Pope's letter comes out the way of doing that will become clearer.

I think the Pope's letter will outline pastoral initiatives which the bishops will need to set in train as part of this process of renewal. But, just as the survivors have passed over the torch of light and truth to the bishops, so too they will have to pass it on to the laity in their dioceses who hopefully will be reinvigorated by these new pastoral initiatives.

The first stage of this crisis, that which began with the survivors blowing the whistle, has taken 20 years to come to fruition in the Ferns, Ryan and Murphy reports, is coming to an end. The second stage of it began on Ash Wednesday when the bishops of Ireland returned with a plan and a process.

It will take a long time, it won't be easy and some will falter just as some failed to act justly with the survivors. However, we as laity need to keep them focussed on the prize, the green shoots of which are barely visible above ground. It is not all doom and gloom, no matter what you hear on the radio or read in the papers.

There is the opportunity to be constructively critical in helping the bishops and the wider church here in Ireland get it right, especially with progressive bishops like Archbishop Martin, Cardinal Brady, Bishop Noel Traynor and others at the helm. Bishop Martin called on victims not to ''lose heart'' but assured them that the hierarchy has ''begun something''. It may not be enough, it isn't enough as nothing can ever make up for what has been done in the past, but it is a beginning and that, despite the anger and betrayal felt by everyone, is a flicker of hope in what has been dark days.