Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown has criticised what he describes as the “modern secular and consumerist culture”, and said that the political parties in the North who adopt this ideology “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 gone from being a natural part of life to being seen 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”.