Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Arch­bish­op Joseph Har­ris has spo­ken out against gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion, plead­ing with the pub­lic not to com­mit "se­ri­ous sin."Speak­ing at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help RC Church at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, dur­ing Palm Sun­day cel­e­bra­tions yes­ter­day, Arch­bish­op Har­ris said, "Every time we com­mit se­ri­ous sin we cru­ci­fy the lord once again."

Al­though he did not make any ref­er­ence to politi­cians, Har­ris said se­ri­ous sin such as gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion and mur­ders were a form of cru­ci­fix­ion.

"Every mur­der is a cru­ci­fix­ion of the Lord. Every time we leave a home­less per­son to die on the streets is a cru­ci­fix­ion of the Lord. Every time some­one dies in our hos­pi­tals be­cause of poor med­ical care is a cru­ci­fix­ion of the Lord. Every time there is cor­rup­tion in Gov­ern­ment, it is a cru­ci­fix­ion of the Lord and we take part in it," Har­ris said.

The Arch­bish­op's com­ments came days af­ter Hous­ing Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald was fired for hir­ing rel­a­tives at her con­stituen­cy of­fice. Sev­er­al UNC MPs, in­clud­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath have al­so ad­mit­ted to hir­ing close rel­a­tives in their of­fices.

Ask­ing the con­gre­ga­tion whether they "re­al­ly loved the Lord," Har­ris said those who com­mit sin are be­tray­ing Christ.

"How of­ten have we told the Lord I will nev­er be­tray You and how of­ten, a few min­utes af­ter, we be­tray the Lord for a few pieces of sil­ver....if not sil­ver it will be a skirt or pants or some­thing else," Har­ris said. He al­so urged the con­gre­ga­tion not to lime at the beach­es and at­tend sport­ing events for East­er.

"If we are se­ri­ous about cel­e­brat­ing the pas­sion death and res­ur­rec­tion we have to find our­selves in this sto­ry. I know many of you would have made arrange­ments to go to the beach or to some sports meet­ing. Every year I say please try not to do that," Har­ris said.He urged his con­gre­ga­tion to spend the three days in re­flec­tion and med­i­ta­tion.

"Live these three days with the com­mu­ni­ty to which you be­long be­cause this is not an in­di­vid­ual feast that we cel­e­brate by our­selves. This is a feast of the com­mu­ni­ty that we cel­e­brate to­geth­er. We can change our sto­ry from damna­tion to sal­va­tion," Har­ris said.

Har­ris said there was a per­cep­tion in T&T that "God is a Tri­ni" main­ly be­cause T&T has been spared from up­heaval mul­ti­ple times.

"I re­mem­ber five or six years ago there were ru­mours that a hur­ri­cane was com­ing to Trinidad. Busi­ness­es were closed, peo­ple were sent home...schools were closed. But down in St James by a pop­u­lar bar there were peo­ple fete­ing and lim­ing and drink­ing and they said God was a Tri­ni, noth­ing will hap­pen. When the hur­ri­cane flew North, peo­ple said we tell you God is a Tri­ni. He wouldn't let any hur­ri­cane hit us...many peo­ple were prais­ing and thank­ing God who is a Tri­ni," Har­ris said.

How­ev­er, he added that even though T&T has been treat­ed well by God, peo­ple con­tin­ue to cru­ci­fy Him.