The Church lost its patience with the Government in recent weeks. After months of cautious negotiation, two of the most senior churchmen in England and Wales – Cardinal Vincent Nichols and Archbishop John Wilson – called on the Prime Minister to allow churches to reopen immediately. Perhaps it worked. This week the government announced that places of worship could be opened for private prayer on 15 June, nearly three weeks before the 4 July deadline previously set. Cardinal Nichols said he was “grateful” for the development.

Their intervention had come as a surprise. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Church had put public health and safety above its own concerns. What changed? My hunch is that the Government taskforce aimed at supporting places of worship to reopen turned out to be interested in no such thing, and Cardinal Nichols – who has had the impossible job of standing between furious Catholics and uninterested politicians – no longer felt like being everyone’s punching bag. I think he always wanted churches to reopen as soon as possible. And so did I, but I am devastated that the reopening of church doors became the battleground: that this was the Church’s cause.