Following the announcement from the Prime Minister on 31 October that church services will not be able to take place in England from 5 November – 2 December, the Catholic Union has issued the following statement.
Catholic Union President, Rt Hon Sir Edward Leigh MP, comments: “This is an extremely regrettable step. Catholic parishes and individual volunteers have gone to great lengths and given up many hours to make churches safe. While it’s some comfort that there is no return to the blanket church closures we saw earlier in the year, these new measures are still a huge blow to Catholics across the country. People had just got used to going to Mass with face masks and social distancing. We are now almost back to square one.
“These new measures are particularly frustrating as we’ve seen no evidence that people meeting for church services are contributing to the spread of the virus in this country. This is a very difficult time for very many people and attendance at religious services is a significant help to people in coping with it. In the absence of evidence that such services have been a significant source of transmission of the virus, outlawing religious services is a disproportionate response to the pandemic which will increase the suffering of many ordinary people.”
*photo taken in February 2020