Cardinal wants churches to open for ‘our common good’
THE head of the Catholic church in England and Wales has called on the Government to reopen churches as “wellsprings of our common good”.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols’s comments came after Robert Jenrick, the Communities Secretary, defended the decision to keep churches shut, suggesting that singing hymns “can lead to exhalation” and spread coronavirus.
Writing online for The Telegraph, Cardinal Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, praised some of the positives to come from the crisis, such as a greater sense of community and selflessness, and urged the Government to “nurture the roots” of religion to ensure it was in a “healthy” state by opening churches safely.
He said: “So the question arises: how can these emerging strengths be made more permanent and become features of the ‘new normal’? Only if they have deep roots and an environment in which to flourish. Without roots which are nurtured and healthy, these qualities will disappear and we will revert to the ‘old normal’ in which priority is given to the individual, in which any notion of an underlying intrinsic order is dismissed in favour of ‘freedom’, in which dependence is abhorred, in which the giant enterprises of governance and enterprise pay scant attention to the local.”
Cardinal Nichols concluded: “This is why our churches must be opened, so that these wellsprings of our common good may play their part in the reshaping of our ‘new normal’. ”
The earliest that places of worship could reopen is July 4, if the country falls from step four to step three on the
‘Our churches must be opened so they may play their part in the reshaping of our “new normal”’
Government’s five-point threat scale.
Responding to the comments, Mr Jenrick said: “We are working in partnership with faith leaders to develop guidance to enable the phased and safe reopening of places of worship. We will issue the necessary guidance as soon as possible, and ensure places of worship have sufficient time to put measures in place to safely welcome worshippers back as soon as possible.”