Bishop McKeown: Most political parties don’t listen to anyone outside of the secular ideology

Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown has criticised what he describes as the “modern secular and consumerist culture”, saying that it leaves “no place for a dissident voice” that doesn’t support it and that the political parties who adopt this ideology in the North “seem to assume that Catholic education has no place in a modern society”.

In his St Patrick’s Day sermon, Bishop McKeown reminded parishioners that Christianity was seen as a custom a number of decades ago whereas now it’s overpowered by a dominant culture which according to him, sees Christianity as a threat.

“Some decades ago Christianity was taken for granted,” he said. “Now in our modern secular and consumerist culture anything that dares to speak of morality, of right and wrong, of self-control, of sacrifice, is seen as a threat to the new ideology, to the market, to its dominant power,” he declared.

He continued: “If I am at the heart of what the world is all about then nobody will tell me or challenge me about my role as a little self-defining God. We know that most political parties here seem to assume that Catholic education has no place in a modern society, that there is no place for a dissident voice that doesn’t support the new secular ideology”.