Cardinal calls for church services to be held outdoors

OPEN-AIR church services should be held this summer, England’s most senior Catholic has suggested, as churches reopen for the first time today since lockdown began.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols told The Daily Telegraph that he would celebrate the reopening of churches for private prayer by visiting Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey with “others, a few friends” – understood to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby.

According to the cardinal – the leader of England and Wales’ Roman Catholics – the opening for private prayer is vital for Catholics and other Christians and their mental well-being.

“People have been put into a world where their horizons have been shortened. Inner pressures have built up. Some people are focusing on the past and their failings and they need to step into a church where horizons will widen out again,” he said.

“This is a first step, a first toe in the water, so we are all a bit tentative.”

The cardinal had spoken out about churches staying shut while shops could reopen. His remark that churches were “at the back of the queue” appeared to have stuck a chord and last week Lord Greenhalgh, the faith minister, said the cardinal’s lobbying had led to them agreeing to the limited opening.

With church services still prohibited until July 4, and then with no singing, Cardinal Nichols is looking at open-air services. “They would also have restrictions on the number of people who should gather,” he said, “but outdoor celebrations should be explored in the summer months.”

He predicted that churches would have to play a major role in helping people who have been left in financial trouble as result of the lockdown.