They say: ‘never apologise, never explain’, and our present government ministers are masters of this art. But the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has spoken out about the lies told by Megan and Harry to Oprah Winfrey regarding the true date of their wedding and, moreover, has broken ranks with the establishment by coming clean about the fact that he went over the top regarding the COVID-19 restrictions he helped to impose on his flock and his clergy. It’s a puzzle as to why the Archbishop has had this Damascene conversion but it’s a trend I hope will continue. If it doesn’t continue then we ought to be initiating a process that makes sure it does.
One apology that was eventually forthcoming was from the Metropolitan Police who, ever vigilant to the real threats to society—no, not knife crime, robbery or joy-riding—decided to interrupt and actually to stop a Good Friday celebration which was in progress in a Polish Roman Catholic Church in South London two weeks ago. Reportedly, some people were not wearing masks and some people were not socially distanced. The police did not stop to consider if those without masks may have had exemptions and if those in close proximity were, perhaps, from the same households. Instead, they decided—like the public health experts they are trained to be—that the Mass was too unsafe to be allowed to continue. A picture on BBC news showed the police officers at the lectern, next to the altar addressing the congregation. They are very lucky that in the wake of Vatican II, most churches removed the altar rails that prevented all but the clergy and altar servers (exclusively male) from entering what was then referred to as The Sanctuary. Any self-respecting priest would have protected The Sanctuary with his life for fear of the Blessed Sacrament being defiled. To my knowledge, this is the only recorded incident of a Mass in the UK being stopped in full flow by the authorities. Prior to that it was only the Reformation that achieved this. In other parts of the world, the occasional Muslim fanatic beheads a priest or throws a bomb into a church, but in the UK, we have no need for extremists. We have the police.
Returning to his His Grace Archbishop Welby for the time being, it’s never pretty to see a man apologising and then getting further opprobrium. But it’s hard not to ask what a demonstrably intelligent man like Justin Welby was thinking in the first place. Restricting the actual celebration of Communion was bad enough but to prevent clergy from entering their own churches even to transmit a service had no logic, no necessity and left most concerned people speechless. The sight of the Archbishop transmitting a Communion service from his kitchen was one of the most memorable virtue signals I recall from the pandemic. Especially considering he has his own private chapel at Lambeth Palace. However, I am grateful for the small mercy of Welby seeing the light. I am sure he’ll be expected to lead a national service of mourning or thanksgiving after the pandemic. That said, I cannot think what we would be thankful for but we have plenty, in addition to the death toll, to mourn. Lost jobs, lost businesses, lost education, lost opportunities and the loss of economic security for our children and grandchildren as we pay back the trillions we have borrowed. I also hope, by his example, he leads a national process of illumination and apology over the manifest and manifold mistakes made in the management of the pandemic.
Imagine if the apologising trend continues:
Professor Neil Ferguson: ‘I apologise, and not for the first time, not even the second time, for providing alarmist and highly misleading figures to the UK government. Sadly, I can’t promise it won’t happen again’.
Sir Patrick Vallance: ‘I apologise for not acting like a good scientist should and weighing up the evidence properly, I don’t know what happened to me, but I am immediately tendering my resignation as Chief Scientific Adviser and returning my Knighthood to HM the Queen’.
Professor Chris Whitty: ‘I apologise for directly helping to impose unnecessarily severe restrictions on the British public, for knowingly presenting misleading statistics to the nation and for dressing this up with the authority of my position as Chief Medical Officer. I will be referring myself to the General Medical Council in the expectation that they will strike me from the medical register. Naturally, I will be resigning forthwith’.
PM Boris Johnson: ‘I’m sorry for listening to these complete chumps; it was all their fault, not mine. Please vote for me in the next election’.
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