Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

An­gli­can Bish­op Claude Berkley said Pope Fran­cis brought a touch of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean to his pa­pa­cy and he called on re­li­gious lead­ers in T&T to em­u­late the late pon­tiff’s ad­vo­ca­cy and hu­mil­i­ty.

The head of the lo­cal An­gli­can church re­act­ed to the Pope’s pass­ing yes­ter­day telling Guardian Me­dia: “It must be of some sig­nif­i­cance that the Pope passed around this East­er time and I wish to join our broth­ers and sis­ters of the Ro­man Catholic com­mu­ni­ty in their time of be­reave­ment for the pass­ing of this great leader, but more specif­i­cal­ly, to ex­tend that sense of mourn­ing and join­ing with them in the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty be­cause we have done so many things to­geth­er and we usu­al­ly give sup­port to each oth­er.”

The Catholic and An­gli­can church­es have worked to­geth­er in mat­ters of ed­u­ca­tion, mat­ters of po­lit­i­cal con­duct and in mis­sion­ary ac­tiv­i­ty in­clud­ing light­ing of the crèche for Christ­mas and Palm Sun­day pro­ces­sions.

Berke­ley said this was part of Pope Fran­cis’ lega­cy in T&T be­cause he ad­vo­cat­ed for in­ter­faith di­a­logue at every lev­el.

“He brought a dif­fer­ent touch to life at the church, recog­nis­ing our shared hu­man­i­ty in so many ar­eas. I am of the view that he brought an el­e­ment from Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean to the pa­pa­cy in Rome and made a dif­fer­ence in terms of his re­flec­tion, his ad­vo­ca­cy, for mi­grants, the poor, those who are on the mar­gins of so­ci­ety,” he said.

“He spoke as though he was a part of that is­sue that he was rais­ing ad­vo­ca­cy for. His min­istry was an in­tense one and a very thor­ough one and it is some­thing from which we can draw ex­am­ples and func­tion­al­i­ty in re­spect to how we might serve as re­li­gious lead­ers.”

The Mus­lim group, AS­JA, al­so paid trib­ute to Pope Fran­cis, hail­ing his out­spo­ken­ness at the plight of the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple in the on­go­ing con­flict in Gaza.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of AS­JA, Rahi­mool Ho­sein, said: “We ex­press sad­ness at his loss and are in­deed pained with the rest of the Ro­man Catholic com­mu­ni­ty at the pass­ing of this great leader.

“He tire­less­ly ad­vo­cat­ed for peace in Pales­tine and across the world and we are pray­ing for the Catholic com­mu­ni­ty who is mourn­ing at this time.”

The Mod­er­a­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Syn­od Rev­erend Daniel Chance ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the Catholic com­mu­ni­ty.

“We mourn the loss of a ser­vant leader whose pa­pa­cy was marked by hu­mil­i­ty, com­pas­sion, and a tire­less com­mit­ment to jus­tice, peace, and the dig­ni­ty of all peo­ple.

“Pope Fran­cis’ voice for the poor, his care for cre­ation, and his open-heart­ed call to love and mer­cy res­onat­ed far be­yond the Catholic Church, touch­ing lives across de­nom­i­na­tions and faith tra­di­tions,” he said.

The Caribbean Bap­tist Fel­low­ship (CBF) said in a state­ment: “We give God thanks for the life and wit­ness of Pope Fran­cis who through his min­istry re­mind­ed the world of the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of love, mer­cy and grace.

“His com­mit­ment to the poor, his voice for peace and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, his cham­pi­oning of the care of cre­ation and his un­tir­ing ad­vo­ca­cy for ec­u­meni­cal and in­ter­faith di­a­logue have left an in­deli­ble mark not on­ly on the Ro­man Catholic Church but on the whole of Chris­ten­dom.”

Head of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Dr El­lis Bur­ris said cit­i­zens of T&T can learn from Pope Fran­cis’ hu­mil­i­ty and re­spect for God.