ST GEORGE’S, Grena­da—A truce has been bro­kered be­tween Ro­man Catholic Bish­op Clyde Har­vey and Fa­ther Ger­ard Paul, whose pub­lic spat had threat­ened to di­vide the wor­ship­pers in Grena­da.

A brief state­ment is­sued late on Sat­ur­day night by one of the two me­di­a­tors, Ter­rence P Smith, stat­ed that “an agree­ment” had been reached to “pro­mote har­mo­ny in the Catholic Church in Grena­da”.

The state­ment did not in­di­cate whether or not Fa­ther Paul’s “in­def­i­nite” sus­pen­sion had been lift­ed but said that the agree­ment was reached fol­low­ing a meet­ing be­tween the two Ro­man Catholic priests me­di­at­ed by Smith and Shireen Wilkin­son and wit­nessed by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and min­is­ter of le­gal af­fairs, Dr Fran­cis Alex­is, KC.

The state­ment said that “go­ing for­ward, nei­ther Bish­op Har­vey nor Fa­ther Ger­ard Paul will make any pub­lic state­ment apt to not be in the best in­ter­est of the Catholic Church”.

“It was agreed that me­di­a­tion will con­tin­ue in two weeks,” the state­ment said, adding that the Vic­ar Gen­er­al of the dio­cese will pre­side at Holy Mass on Sun­day (yes­ter­day) and that “Fa­ther Paul may be in the Sanc­tu­ary”.

Ear­li­er this month, Bish­op Har­vey said that Fa­ther Paul had “not been sus­pend­ed be­cause of what he had said about Gaza” but for his con­tin­ued “lack of re­spect” for the church and his “pro­nounce­ments that of­ten stray from the truth”.

“I wish to state ... Fa­ther Ger­ard Paul had not been sus­pend­ed be­cause of what he said about Gaza. His sen­ti­ments have been echoed by many in and out of the Catholic Church. The Church is very con­cerned and will con­tin­ue to speak out about the un­just sit­u­a­tions in the world, in­clud­ing Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti and Su­dan,” Bish­op Har­vey said in a video state­ment.

The Trinida­di­an-born Bish­op said the church would con­tin­ue with that pol­i­cy while be­ing ac­tive in car­ing for per­sons “in the midst of these sit­u­a­tions”.

He said the priest had been sus­pend­ed “be­cause of his con­tin­u­ing lack of re­spect for the church of which he is a priest and his pro­nounce­ments that of­ten stray from the truth”.

Bish­op Har­vey said the sus­pen­sion of a priest from min­istry “is not be to con­fused with dis­missal from the priest­hood. Sus­pen­sion, how­ev­er long it may be, is al­ways with a view to fra­ter­nal cor­rec­tion”.

The con­tro­ver­sy be­gan on March 27 at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion and sub­se­quent state­ments made by Fa­ther Paul on var­i­ous me­dia plat­forms, in which he ac­cused the church here for not con­demn­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Gaza.

Fa­ther Paul said at a re­cent cler­gy re­treat that the sit­u­a­tion was not even men­tioned or ad­dressed.

“I call up­on the Church to­day to get its free­dom and to get its voice and speak up for jus­tice,” the priest said while call­ing the Gaza war a ‘whole­sale slaugh­ter’ of Pales­tini­ans and Mus­lims.

“We can­not right­ly ever preach the Gospel if we do not stand for jus­tice. It’s time the Catholic Church stands for jus­tice. It’s time we hear the voic­es of the pas­tors of the church, we hear the voic­es of the priests of the church, we hear the voic­es of the bish­ops, we hear the voic­es of the arch­bish­ops, we hear the voice of the pope stand­ing for jus­tice. When you stand in si­lence, when you sit in si­lence, you are part of these in­jus­tices in the name of the Fa­ther and of the Son and the Holy Spir­it,” the Grena­di­an-born Fa­ther Paul said. (CMC)