The lockdown of churches during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic was “outrageous”, a former Government minister has admitted.
Lord Greenhalgh of Fulham, a Conservative peer in Boris Johnson’s Government, said that churches and other places of worship were closed because “people at the heart of power did not understand faith”.
He made his remarks as the Covid Inquiry heard evidence from senior advisers and civil servants about the decisions taken during the pandemic.
They included Deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara who told the inquiry that decision makers had suffered from a “narrow perspective”.
Lord Greenhalgh said that places of worship did a “phenomenal job” at controlling the spread of the virus compared to rates of transmission in other settings that were not subject to the same restrictions.
His comments to the Catholic Union will add further pressure to the Baroness Hallett, the chair of the inquiry, to properly consider the decisions around the closure and reopening of places of worship.
Lord Greenhalgh served as Minister of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and later at the Home Office until his resignation from the Government in July 2022.
He was given responsibility for government policy on faith and communities between 2020 and 2021, the years of two lockdowns so was privy to the reasons given for the heavy-handed treatment of places of worship.
The churches were first closed after Mr Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced the first lockdown on March 23 2020.
They were among the last places to be released from the lockdown, however, because they were put in the same higher-risk category as pubs, cinemas, hairdressers and beauty salons.
The Government claimed social distancing within them would be difficult at a time of elevated risk of infection.
Garden centres, construction work and other businesses were able to unlock some seven weeks earlier, however.
Nigel Parker, the director of the Catholic Union, said: “Before Covid, few of us could have imagined our churches being forced to close by law.
“Yet that is the situation we faced at times during the dark days of the pandemic.
“The inquiry into the UK’s response to the pandemic needs to consider the decisions around the closure and reopening of places of worship, which had such a huge impact on so many people.
“The Catholic Union led the charge in getting our churches open again, and we’re now committed to making sure they are never forced to close again.”
He added “I encourage everyone to take part in our survey to make sure the voices of Catholic are heard as part of this inquiry.”
At the start of the pandemic, the bishops of England and Wales were hoping that the churches might stay open for private prayer.
Confessions, even in open air, were also prohibited and from April 2020 priests were told to counsel patients with coronavirus by telephone rather than give them the Sacrament of the Sick in person.
The numbers of mourners at funerals were also drastically limited.
Most dioceses live-streamed liturgies from empty cathedrals and some parish churches and invited the faithful to watch such Masses each Sunday and make a “spiritual communion” at home.
The bishops successfully appealed against the churches being subjected to a complete lockdown during the second wave of restrictions in 2021.
Mass attendance dwindled in the aftermath of the lockdown, however, and some apostolates, such as the Catholic Press, suffered severely.
Besides the prohibition of public Mass during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries, the only time when English Catholics were denied access to the sacraments was between 1208 and 1214 when Pope Innocent III froze public worship to punish King John for refusing to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury.