By Stabroek News
Dear Editor,
The Roman Catholic Church (Church) has a storied history of standing against oppression, no matter the power of the oppressors. In his 1937 encyclical, 鈥淒ivini Redemptoris鈥 Pope Pius XI took a stand against 鈥済odless鈥 communism. Way back in the Dark Ages of 1891, Pope Leo XIII鈥檚 encyclical 鈥淩erum Novarum鈥 spoke about the wretchedness of workers during the Industrial Revolution, and recorded a clear stand for their rights and dignity. In my time, Pope Leo XIV is taking aim at the Artificial Intelligence revolution, and I share his fears. In Guyana, the Church bent its back, took an unequivocal stand during the time of Forbes Burnham. Catholic social doctrine, the fight for social justice, compels me to stand and speak, as those Popes of before, and now. I do so, even as I must recall the weakness of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi era, and other pontiffs relative to priestly predators.
Against that illustrious backdrop of fallible men seeking to lead in the fight for the poor, the vulnerable, the exploited, and the demonized, I come to Guyana. A hopelessly ruptured country; polarized is not the word, but one perpetually pulverized and profaned. But the honourable head of this desecrated Republic is invited to cross the portals of one RC Church, then another. I support such invitations 150%, as long as what goes for a president also goes for the lowliest peasant; whether by birthright, or by rights given from squeezing across the border. 鈥淚 came to call sinners鈥.鈥 The weakened must be welcomed. But that must be the limit of their attendance. Caesar regarded, even when the Herodian is closer to home. It is an abomination of desolation for oppressors to be allowed to stand in sacred space and sell. The moneychangers had their own programme in the temple. Jesus proceeded to run them out. I take a tactful line: Catholics must be more circumspect.
For, if memory serves well, no president of this divided polity has ever spoken close to the altar. Or given the opportunity to pontificate, to regurgitate, at all. Not once. Precedent was created on Sunday last in the hallowed precincts of an RC Church on the East Coast Demerara. Who鈥檚 next? One leader of the opposition? Then the other? I say: NO to all three. All are welcome, all should come to worship. Not to slickly insert a selling point or two. Only worship. Not as part of a campaign. But as a coming to Jesus moment. If one place, then another looks inevitable, and I point to the year in which Guyanese find themselves. An interesting one, if one asked the wise Chinese.
I recoil at the optics. I cringe from the audibles, already heard. Seen and heard: partisanship. The Church is biased. I have a problem with a genuinely righteous citizen entering the sanctuary, and given free rein to sell, to sway, to saturate. My consternation, my objection, my rebellion, should not require too much to identify with; to applaud or condemn. Let this little something of majestic proportions be said before all Guyanese. I am prepared to wash the president鈥檚 feet. Literally, as part of my calling, the commandments I obey. I wash his feet, even though his people have kicked me in the face. He knows them, they are that inseparable from his bosom. He knows the slanderers and revilers in his upper and inner supporting cast. Having said so, the president (and Vice President and Opp Leaders) should always be welcomed. But as guests, and not as manmade gods.
Not when there are Guyanese being discriminated against, bought for a pound, and then pushed to sell their dignity for a penny. Not when the social justice truths, so cherished by the Church, are violated at will, and with a smirk, if not scorn. Not when poor Guyanese struggle to make sense of their miserable conditions in a place so blessed by divine providence. There is American Exceptionalism. I also believe in Guyana鈥檚 exceptionalism in that regard, that one involving natural resources. In contrast, the quantity of its quality of human resources leaves me in tears. From the very top, then downward, with few stops in between.
It is time to go. Guyana is so angry, Guyanese are so degraded, that it has to qualify as the height of indifference, maybe willful ignorance, to initiate the step that was taken that brought the president hurrying to a pew in the Church on the East Coast. In this country, it cannot be one. For the Church to retain its honour, if this is done for one, then it must be done for the rest. Let them all come and kneel and bare the truths (the real ones) in their hearts before God. I have said enough today.