Now the police are breaking up Good Friday services

There have been many shocking and even despicable acts of authoritarianism over this past year of lockdown. And right up there are the events that took place at a Polish Catholic church in south London yesterday. On Good Friday, the most solemn day in the Catholic calendar, police officers walked into the church, proceeded to the altar and instructed the congregation to go home or face arrest. It captures, better than anything I’ve seen, how thoroughly Britain has lost its way as a result of the hysteria and illiberalism of the Covid crisis.

It looks like something out of a tinpot tyranny. The church service was being livestreamed online. Halfway through, two cops appear and arrogantly walk to the sanctuary itself, the area around the altar. They then take over the lectern from the priest and issue a dire warning to the people who had gathered to commemorate the darkest day in the Christian faith – the trial and execution of Christ. ‘You need to go home’, an officer says. ‘Failure to comply with this direction to leave… could lead you to be fined £200 or, if you fail to give your details, to you being arrested.’

It feels chilling to hear such a bureaucratic threat being issued to people who are exercising their freedom of religion. There are so many disturbing things about this assault on a religious gathering. First, it is being reported that the church had taken the necessary measures to make itself Covid-secure. But even if it hadn’t, couldn’t the police have waited until the service was over before having a word with the priest, perhaps? Secondly, who grassed on these Catholics? Who phoned the police to tell them a group of people was marking the death of Christ? What kind of curtain-twitching, ratting-out country have we become?

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