LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald
August 1, 2019
By Ruairidh MacLennan
Bishop John Keenan has led the Diocese of Paisley since 2014. Prior to this he served as Catholic chaplain to the University of Glasgow for 14 years, and as vocations director for the Archdiocese of Glasgow. He has emerged as a strong proponent of the New Evangelisation, and of a renewal of faith in Britain. I spoke to him in St Mirin’s Cathedral, Paisley.
Bishop Keenan, what are the main challenges facing the faith across Britain today? Could you offer a diagnosis?
Bishop John Keenan Britain is one of the most secularised countries in the Western world. It has bought into the idea that it became a modern state by winning out against religion and the Church. People see their dignity as being that which enables them to determine their own identity and morals, particularly in the realm of sexuality. This has become such a widely held view that anyone who holds an opinion to the contrary – namely, that there is an objective truth about ourselves and our lives given to us by God – is considered to be an enemy of the modern state. The Catholic Church is now the one institution in Britain which still believes that there is a God who gives us our human nature and identity, and who has made known to our reason what sort of lives we should be living in order to truly be free and fulfilled.
I am reminded of the comments which the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, made in 2018 in which he suggested that certain rights – mandated by the state – “trumped” other rights.
JK It is a new manifestation of what Orwell said: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” This is where we are now. All rights are “equal”, be they religious rights or LGBT rights … but some are more equal. Orwell used that as a parody of communism, and eventually he identified this as the fatal flaw which would bring about its downfall. It was predicated on a contradiction, as is postmodern society. He said that of the Eastern Bloc, but it now equally applies to the politics of the West. You cannot have equality for all and say that some are more equal. Ultimately it ceases to be about truth, but about power. It is built on sand, not nature, or reason. It is built on the will to power.
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