There is a real need for good news, because society is wallowing in despair and meaninglessness, the bishop of Derry Donal McKeown has said.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Dr McKeown said Catholics need to participate in cultural life. He urged believers to “get out there and engage in debates about creation, about human life, about AI, about all those things”.

To do this, he said, they need to embrace an intellectual faith that is different from mere piety, adding that the Church is not retreating: “it is actually re-shaping for mission, we’re not downsizing for the sake of downsizing, we’re doing it in order to be better, fitter, leaner and better able to engage with our society at the intellectual level and all other sorts of levels.”

He said that for Derry, he hoped that the opening of the St Paul’s religious bookstore in Derry would help that task.