The Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice (CC­SJ) is sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to de­clare a state of emer­gency and is call­ing on all Catholics to do like­wise."The Catholic Church con­tin­ues to be deeply con­cerned about the es­ca­la­tion of crime in T&T," a re­lease from the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day stat­ed.The state­ment added: "The CC­SJ calls on all Catholics and, in­deed, the en­tire na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to sup­port the mea­sure by of­fer­ing up prayers."Let us make a new com­mit­ment to re­duce crime and re­store our re­spect for law and for the dig­ni­ty of hu­man life."Our aim must be to re­ject a cul­ture of vi­o­lence and death and em­brace a cul­ture of life."

The CC­SJ said it was aware that short-term an­swers to deep­er so­cial prob­lems would not work and is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to al­so de­vel­op medi­um and long-term strate­gies to deal with crime and vi­o­lence.White-col­lar crime and the drug and arms trade must al­so be tack­led, the CC­SJ ad­vised.So­cial prob­lems like un­em­ploy­ment and pover­ty al­so must be ad­dressed.Ur­gent at­ten­tion was need­ed in the ar­eas of strength­en­ing fam­i­ly life and pro­mot­ing moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues, it said.The CC­SJ asked the church to end ser­vices at a rea­son­able time to en­sure wor­ship­pers reach home be­fore the 9 pm cur­few."We ap­peal to all cit­i­zens of good will to use this time to bond with your fam­i­ly and to recom­mit to liv­ing vir­tu­ous lives," the com­mis­sion said.