Jonathan Beswick has narrated this article for you to listen to.
On a beautifully sunny Maundy Thursday last year, during the first lockdown, I removed my cassock, slung my satchel over my shoulder and rode my bicycle to Lambeth Palace and back. At the halfway point I paused briefly to slip a letter under the Archbishop of Canterbury’s front door, before heading for home and the sad prospect of a solitary evening mass.
In my letter I asked the Archbishop to reconsider his request that we not pray in our churches. Communal worship was still forbidden, but the government clearly considered it lawful for the clergy to continue to go into their churches to pray on behalf of their absent congregations. Surely that is what we are here for? Of course, his request did not affect me — the Archbishop has no authority to close churches and tell clergy to stay at home — but many clergy were evidently doing what they were told. Some bishops, in other dioceses, even threatened legal action if we didn’t toe the line.
Many churches have sadly now closed again, especially in London, even though, unlike in the last two lockdowns, churches are (at the time of writing) permitted by law to stay open for communal worship. Our MPs, mayors and various religious leaders have written to us directly to ask us to close. I have compassion and respect for those who have yielded to the considerable pressure, but my church is one of the few in London to resist and I believe we are right to do so. An open church, in the depths of winter, is now one of the very few places a person can come to see others (albeit masked) and to get out of their flats.
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