HAVING reached the retirement age of 75, Bishop
of Derry Donal McKeown has submitted his resignation letter to the Pope
and is now awaiting news. It’s a sort of
limbo period, in that he doesn’t yet know if Pope Leo will ask him to
stay on or will accept his resignation and begin the process of
appointing a successor.
But he’s content either way.
“I’ll
do what I’m asked to do. I have dedicated my life to this. I don’t have
a wife and children or grandchildren to worry about.
“But,
having said that, it would be nice to return to being a priest in some
little village somewhere with no decisions to make.”
Whatever the uncertainty about his own future, he is remarkably upbeat about the future of the Catholic Church.
After decades of taking a battering on many fronts, he feels a turning point has been reached.
“I
think there’s a real crisis for secularism at the present time. I find
increasing numbers of young people who are showing signs of
dissatisfaction in terms of mental illness, in terms of addiction, in
terms of just not being very hopeful about the future,” he says.
“My own experience tells me they are out there looking for truth and beauty, and longing for something better.”
And
he adds: “They have gone beyond the rejection of faith their parents’
generation went through, and some of them are discovering the whole
notion of God, of learning about the beauty of liturgy, of architecture,
of faith.
“They
are looking for something more than to eat, drink and be merry for
tomorrow we die. There are way too many people dying for want of reason
for living.”
He sees a resurgence in faith in the grassroots in Derry.
“There is a lot of energy here.
“In
places like Galliagh there are prayer groups. There are bible study
groups springing up in all sorts of arts and parts. There are young
men’s groups. There are youth masses on Sunday evenings. And we have
eight seminarians at present in this diocese.”
A friendly and engaging man, the bishop makes a point of walking the streets of Derry at least once a week.
And,
he says, during his 14 years wearing the bishop’s mitre, he has never
encountered a single negative comment from a member of the public.
“I want to communicate with people, to say hello to them, to smile at them.
“I
call into the ex-prisoners’ shop in William Street. I know the street
drinkers, I know the shop-keepers, I talk to the tour guides. I try to
be out and be accessible, not hiding behind my role as bishop.”
Born
in Randalstown in Co Antrim, Donal McKeown was raised by a watchmaker
father and a mother who was a primary school teacher.
As his dad was one of 13 children and his mother one of eight, he grew up with a huge family network.
At primary school, he was one of four who passed the 11-plus and progressed to Garron Tower in the Glens of Antrim.
It would seem he was one of their star pupils.
“My granny was a Delargy from Glenariff so that was probably the real reason I went there.
“Garron
Tower was only founded about nine years before I started, and it was
staffed by brilliant teachers, mostly young priests. I got a great
education.
“Three of my four A-Level teachers
were priests. They were the best teachers, loved their subjects. I did
Latin, German, Irish and English, and the priest who taught us Irish
wanted us to do Irish in one year. We were up for it.
“So,
Fr Brendan McGarry, who taught Latin, asked us if we were up for doing
that in one year as well, so we did. And we all got our A-Levels in the
one academic year.”
Today Donal McKeown is fluent in Irish, English, Latin, French, German, Italian and has also studied Portuguese and Arabic.
He has a MBA in Business Education and impressive qualifications also in theology and counselling.
When asked, he rejects the description of himself as an academic.
And then we come to the biggest question of all – why the priesthood?
“If you are asking did the skies open or something like that, no. It wasn’t like that at all. It was a gradual thing.
“Towards
the end of my time at Garron Tower, one of the career guidance teachers
asked me what I wanted to do and I responded that maybe I would like to
follow Mammy and become a teacher.
“He asked did I ever think of becoming a priest? For some reason I said I would give it a try. And that was that.”
As
the Diocese of Down and Connor had a tradition of sending those
studying for degrees to Queen’s University in Belfast, the young McKeown
found himself as a seminarian living in a specially designated wing at
the city’s St Malachy’s College.
Over the next few years of his life there, he regularly travelled abroad during holidays.
One
occasion he recalls was when Star of the Sea basketball club were going
to Germany on an exchange programme and they wanted someone who could
speak the language, and he was called upon. It was only years later he
discovered one of the young lads on the team was Bobby Sands.
Later
that same year he went from Germany to Italy to work for six weeks in a
factory outside Florence. He became great friends with a young couple,
Sergio and Maria, and in 1976 was invited back to be best man at their
wedding.
Over the coming years he was to have a career he loved in teaching.
If that wasn’t a busy enough life, he was asked by Bishop Cathal Daly to take on a couple of other fairly demanding roles.
He
laughs when recalling that conversation: “He said, ‘Donal, I want you
to teach in St Malachy’s, to run all diocesan pilgrimages, but make
running the seminary your main job.”
And if Fr
McKeown thought that becoming principal of St Malachy’s, which he did
in 1995, would become his chief role, he was soon disabused of that
idea.
“Bishop Paddy Walsh was looking for an auxiliary bishop and for some reason the lot fell on yours truly.”
How did that come about?
“The
choice is made in Rome, but when it comes to an auxiliary I think a
bishop can say I need someone, for example, who can cover the
educational base or who’ll handle the media, someone who’ll fit in a
particular role. But if you want to know why me in this particular
instance, you had better ask someone else.”
And
that triggers the story of his mother’s reaction: “The night before it
was announced, I got the press release so I travelled home to show it to
my mother. She said ‘Could they not find someone else?’ I think she
thought she would lose me.
“Randalstown wasn’t
that far away. Daddy was dead. She was on her own. She depended on us
coming about the house. I can only presume she thought then she might
not see too much of me when I became bishop.”
As
an aside, he mentions that eight days after his installation, he ran
the Belfast marathon and thinks he might still be the only bishop to
have ever run one.
In a way, running has been a bit of a metaphor for a life in that has always been on the go.
Indeed,
he was only getting truly into the auxiliary role when, totally
unexpectedly, he got the call in 2014 to be Bishop in Derry.
How did he react to that?
“To
be honest, I thought it a privilege to be asked. Derry is a
high-profile diocese. To have it thought that I could make a
contribution was an honour.
“Edward Daly had
been here. It was the second largest diocese in Northern Ireland. It was
a cultural, historical centre. It was a major diocese.
“I
don’t know if there was any consensus about my appointment, but I was
asked to take it on and I said I would with the grace of God.”
And he has enjoyed it immensely, despite the workload.
“Someone
once said to me that Derry was a good fit for me. I asked him what did
he mean. He said it’s big enough to have tourists, to have a large urban
population, to have culture, a radio station, to have local papers.
“It’s
not like a small diocese in the west of Ireland where the cathedral is
in a village somewhere. It’s big enough to have variety and tourism, but
small enough to be homely.“
Having Radio Foyle is also a great personal blessing, in that he can be in the studio in five minutes.
“I
have been doing Thought for the Day since the early 80s. They keep
asking me, and I enjoy it. There is the teacher in me in that I like
communicating. I like learning. I like wrestling with ideas. I like
sharing.
“Chesterton’s quote always come to my
mind: ‘It always better to be unhappy with the right questions than
happy with the wrong answers’.”
He likes Derry too.
“I
find Derry is great in that in that bishops like Edward Daly and James
Mehaffey worked so well together. Bishop Ken Good and myself also work
well.
“Before
Covid, we walked together from St Colmcille’s birthplace in Gartan to
Derry. We also did a number of other walks. We went to Iona.
“We were in Rome together and met all sorts of significant people including the Pope.
“We have tried to provide a leadership role in encouraging an example that is helpful for community relationships.”
Reflecting on his life, he says we all have to make choices.
“I would love to have been married. I much prefer female company.
“I
had a bit of a crisis as a student in 75/76. I was tired, exhausted. I
didn’t know if God was saying ‘McKeown get out’ or the devil was saying
‘I have lovely things to show you’, but when crunch time came to decide,
the clouds sort of opened. I was struggling, but I got the right word
at the right time.”
So, if he does retire, has he any big ambitions left?
“I
have done the Via Francigena. It’s the Canterbury to Rome walk. I have
done about 600k of that over the past few years. If I retire I would
love to do more. It’s a wonderful walk, and having Italian, I don’t feel
ill equipped to walk out into the Italian countryside.”
Any final thoughts?
”I am happy if I have been of any use in helping people to find the love and forgiveness of God.
“In St Luke’s Gospel it says we are only servants, and we have done nothing but our duty.
“It
is not my job to achieve anything. Sometimes things can go wrong. All
the Lord asks us of us is to be faithful. The fruit may not be borne
until further down the line but that doesn’t matter.
“That gives you freedom to do your best, and if you make mistakes God can work through that. So, it’s not about me.
“This priestly life was my vocation. I am content with that.”
