Billy Kennedy: NI church leaders must stand up to ‘do as your told’ decree from Stormont

The rigid “do as you’re told” decree which our churches of all denominations have been presented comes from political representatives, some of whom would profess to be Christians, church-goers and congregational workers.

Appallingly, the diktat comes against the backdrop of the Executive permitting off-licence business establishments in our cities and towns to open around the clock for the unchallenged sale of alcohol.

In the first phase of the so-called Executive plan, churches can have limited opening time for prayer, alongside permission for “drive-in churches”, a pop-up Americanism which I am not yet sure exists in Northern Ireland.

In step four of the plan, however, churches will be allowed to open for services provided worshippers are two metres apart. When that will take place? We simply do not know - July, August, September, Christmas?

The main church leaders in Northern Ireland (Presbyterian, Church of Ireland, Methodist and Roman Catholic) have had consultations with senior Stormont politicians about the total lockdown.

But one gets the impression that the NI churchmen are happy to be complicit with what the politicians decide and this obviously leaves them in a weak position.

On decision taking, right or wrong, no one wants to run the risk of being blamed - politicians, churchmen and scientists, even from their protected anonymity.

At a UK national level, faith leaders are to urgently liaise with the government to come up with a game plan on how and when to re-open churches.

This was confirmed by communities minister Robert Jenrick, who said he would meet with religious leaders to plan the re-opening of places of worship, whether for public worship or individual prayer.

* The Times newspaper in London, always a good barometer for British establishment thinking, has called for the opening up of churches across the nation. A hard-hitting editorial says churches should not be waiting for a government green light; it should be clamouring to resume the Christian mission.

The newspaper praised 800 church of England clergy for expressing, in a letter, that the excessive ecclesiastical lock-down represents “a failure of the church’s responsibility to the nation”.

The CoE clergy protest that their congregations are being robbed of their faith. They argue that domestic settings cannot replace the church buildings whose architecture, symbolism and history represent “the consecration of our public life”.

Significantly, The Times, sharply critical of the “lacklustre response” of the Archbishop of Canterbury Rev Justin Welby, thunders - “if the faithful wish to congregate, the government and the church should not prevent them”.