‘Right to choose’ comes at great cost – bishop

Downplaying committed relationships and fidelity in favour of “the right to choose” comes at a great cost for the young and the fragile, says Bishop McKeown.

Reflecting on the parable of the wheat and the weeds, Bishop McKeown said it offers us material from which we can “speak into society”.

“Political discourse has so often been reduced to simplistic solutions,” Dr McKeown said. “Complex issues have been reduced to black versus white, repressive versus liberal options.

“We know from recent decades that what has been defined as progress may well have apparently benefited some – but that others have paid a price.”

Bishop McKeown continued, saying secular dogmas can be “as harsh and blind” as anything that they condemn in a religious past or present.

“Then and now, there are none so blind as the dogmatists who do not want to see the uncomfortable truth,” he said.

Bishop McKeown also said he was wary of those who “hanker after a gilded past”, adding that the reality of sin in the Church should is not intended as a depressing message.

“God can still use a humbled contrite Church to bear great fruit,” he said. “That is the source of our hope and confidence.”