For all the current hostility toward religion in Western nations right now – some of it entirely justified – the season of Christmas is a hardy annual that keeps on giving to all of us.

Over the last five years, the Australian Royal Commission has laid bare in its end-of-year summaries the systematic, criminal dysfunctionality of the Catholic Church in regard to child sexual abuse and its cover-up, and countless priests wondered whether anyone would turn up for Christmas Mass. I thought that the final report of the Royal Commission, which was released on 15 December, would have a devastating impact on the numbers of people wanting to bring their children to church to celebrate Christmas Mass at the Vigil and on Christmas Day morning.