Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is pledg­ing that her gov­ern­ment will up­hold free­dom of re­li­gious ex­pres­sion, as she calls on church­es to help unite the na­tion and of­fer refuge to those in need.

In her first pub­lic ap­pear­ance since de­clar­ing the State of Emer­gency, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told mem­bers of the New Tes­ta­ment Church of God Caribbean As­sem­bly that while the state has its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, the church must take a lead­ing role in shap­ing the moral and so­cial fab­ric of the na­tion.

“Gov­ern­ments can pass all the laws they want, they can try to build all the roads they want, they can try to build all the schools and all the hos­pi­tals that we want, but it is a church—of­ten it is the church—which binds. It is a church that stud­ies us, stud­ies the fright­ened. The church in­spires hope and as­sures us we are loved and pro­tect­ed by the great­est, most pow­er­ful au­thor­i­ty, our beloved Lord,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so re­flect­ed on the na­tion­al trau­ma sur­round­ing the 2021 kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bhar­ratt, re­call­ing the grief that hung over the coun­try at the time. She said it was faith and re­li­gious uni­ty that brought the na­tion to­geth­er dur­ing those dark days.

“In the dark days af­ter a young woman's ab­duc­tion and mur­der in 2021 here in our coun­try, faith lead­ers across every de­nom­i­na­tion stood shoul­der to shoul­der with a griev­ing fam­i­ly, hands linked, scrip­ture open, pray­ing for jus­tice and heal­ing.”

She lament­ed that dur­ing her first term as Prime Min­is­ter she was crit­i­cised for dis­trib­ut­ing $55 mil­lion to Chris­t­ian church­es to strength­en so­cial out­reach.

“My crit­ics ques­tioned what it was, and I said plain­ly, gov­ern­ment must help our church­es so church­es can con­tin­ue to help the peo­ple of Or­lan­do. That con­vic­tion still guides me to­day, just 10 weeks in­to my new tenure,” she de­clared, as the con­gre­ga­tion burst in­to rap­tur­ous ap­plause.

The Prime Min­is­ter again pledged her gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions.

“My gov­ern­ment will safe­guard free­dom of wor­ship. My gov­ern­ment will pro­tect de­nom­i­na­tion­al rights. We will sup­port faith-based pro­grams that feed, heal, coun­sel and em­pow­er our cit­i­zens and our col­lec­tive so­ci­ety.”

She had one re­quest from the church­es.

“Will you re­solve with me? I ask please, let us re­solve with God as our wit­ness the fol­low­ing. Uni­ty will be more than a pho­to­graph, it will be a shared labour and mu­tu­al re­spect. Wor­ship will over­flow in­to jus­tice, mer­cy, and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.”

Ref­er­enc­ing the Bible, she re­mind­ed the con­gre­ga­tion, “The grass with­ers, the flower fades, but the word of God shall stand for­ev­er.”

At the con­clu­sion of her speech, the re­li­gious lead­ers asked the con­gre­ga­tion to ex­tend their hands to­wards the Prime Min­is­ter and pray for her.

“God, we thank you for this mo­ment in time. For such a time, you have called and cho­sen her to lead this Twin Na­tion. We pray for her now. The Spir­it of wis­dom and un­der­stand­ing. The Spir­it of coun­sel and might. The Spir­it of knowl­edge and the fear of the Lord. Tonight, give her strength.

Give her the health that she needs now with well­ness,” they prayed.