Such are the vagaries of news that a story which in one week might get a lot of attention will get none at all in another.
In a quieter week than this, a speech Archbishop Diarmuid Martin delivered in Mater Dei Institute on the subject of church and State would have been reported more widely than it was.
It deserved to be, because in it he had important things to say about the Constitution, the planned children's rights referendum, the constitutional definition of marriage, and the future of denominational education.
With regard to children's rights, he acknowledged the need to "ensure the rights of children are properly protected" but cautioned against thinking that "simply moving responsibility from parents to the State would provide a more effective answer".
In a low-key, non-confrontational manner (which may also explain the lack of media coverage) he also fired a shot across the bows of the Government and its planned
'Constitutional Convention'.
The Government doesn't need to be told that Martin is the most influential churchman in the country and therefore it should pay attention to what he had to say on this.
With regard to the Constitution in general, he defended it against "simplistic caricatures" that it represents an "unquestioning regurgitation of sectarian Catholic principles".
He said it is "remarkably modern in many of its aspects" and that constitutions should not be "played around with lightly".
He defended the constitutional definition of the family as based on the marriage of a man and a woman.
He said other forms of relationship should be given their fundamental rights, but that traditional marriage is "a fundamental good in society, which deserves a unique protection".
But the government minister that needs to pay the closest attention of all to this address is our new Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn.
Despite his embarrassing neo-McCarthyite paranoia at the time of the publication of the Ryan Report about the Department of Education being infiltrated by members of Opus Dei and the Knights of St Columbanus, I suspect that Quinn on the whole will be more inclined to listen to opposing views than some of his colleagues.
He will have heard Martin welcoming the planned national forum on the future running of Irish primary schools.
But then, the forum was an idea of Diarmuid Martin in the first place.
He will also have heard him asserting the right of Catholic schools to exist, however many or few they may be in the future.
Quinn doesn't seem to want to deny them this right in any case.
He seems to believe in the principle of parental choice, meaning the State should not serve up to parents a one-size-fits-all model and instead, within reason, should give them the schools they want.
The main purpose of the coming forum is to find out what they do want.
But the danger is that parents won't get a look-in at all and instead it will be dominated by the likes of the teachers' unions that often seem to think that they, and not the parents or the department or the churches, should have the major say over our schools.
Quinn will need to guard against that.
He'll also have his work cut out trying to find truly representative parents instead of parents firmly attached to the various interest groups.
The desired outcome of the forum is that it will give clear guidance on how many of the country's primary schools should remain under the patronage of the Catholic Church, and how many should be transferred to other patrons, like the VEC or Educate Together.
Quinn himself told RTE last week that a reduction in the number of Catholic schools would benefit Catholic parents because the remaining ones could be more truly Catholic, instead of the current situation where they often fudge their ethos to keep non-practising parents and non-practising teachers happy.
This indicates he believes in the autonomy of denominational schools.
But I wonder if that is really the case, because that autonomy can't be maintained if, in the name of 'equality', their employment policies, their admissions policies and what they can actually teach is compromised.
Therefore, the denominational sector as a whole should insist on at least the current level of autonomy being maintained before a single school is handed over.
But Quinn also needs to recognise that a long road lies ahead.
Every bishop is independent of every other bishop so far as their schools go, and the parishes to which the schools are attached also have a lot of autonomy in this matter.
Finally, when push comes to shove, parents might suddenly discover that they value their local Catholic school more than they thought.
In other countries, church-run schools are extremely popular because usually they are very good.
In general, churches educate kids better and more cheaply than states.
That's something else for our new Education Minister to bear in mind.
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