Af­ter years of State per­se­cu­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty will ce­ment their place in so­ci­ety with lands that will be al­lo­cat­ed for the first cathe­dral for the faith.

In fact, dozens of ap­pli­ca­tions by the var­i­ous faiths for State lands and gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance will be grant­ed be­fore the end of 2019 as Row­ley said these in­sti­tu­tions are re­spon­si­ble for hold­ing so­ci­ety to­geth­er.

He was speak­ing at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Day cel­e­bra­tions at the Sixth Com­pa­ny Recre­ation Ground in Moru­ga on Sat­ur­day.

And though he de­clared that it was a par­ty event, he said it was al­so re­li­gious one. It fea­tured the can­dles, bells, in­tri­cate head­wear, African drums and the mourn­ful songs that were evoca­tive of the Afro-Chris­t­ian faith.

As he ad­dressed those gath­ered for the cel­e­bra­tion, he re­flect­ed on the era of the Shouter Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance of 1917 that de­prived the com­mu­ni­ty of the free­dom to prac­tice their faith.

Af­ter suf­fer­ing for 34 years with the “dra­con­ian” law, he said lands were promised. How­ev­er, that promise was nev­er ful­filled while oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions got lands. This, he said, added to di­vi­sions in so­ci­ety.

“The sig­nif­i­cance of a sa­cred cathe­dral, which was an ex­pec­ta­tion of 1985, should be an am­bi­tion for those of us in au­thor­i­ty in the church and the gov­ern­ment, and the pop­u­la­tion at this point in time. And maybe we can all con­sole our­selves by say­ing that noth­ing hap­pens be­fore its time,” Row­ley said.

He re­called that the faith plead­ed for a na­tion­al memo­r­i­al ground and recog­nised Bap­tist ceme­tery. As Prime Min­is­ter, he said he took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ec­cle­si­as­tic mat­ters and while lit­tle men­tion was made of it pub­licly, he has been deal­ing with the is­sues that have been there for a while.

He said the State’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty has been at­tract­ing his at­ten­tion for some time and through work­ing with the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Clarence Ramb­harat, a par­cel land in Cen­tral Trinidad has been iden­ti­fied and the Gov­ern­ment will soon an­nounce that it will be avail­able for the build­ing of the cathe­dral.

He said just like the coun­tries re­quest­ing repa­ra­tion from Eu­rope for slav­ery, he asked cit­i­zens to re­flect on how the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty felt through the re­pres­sion of the colo­nial gov­ern­ment.

While there were many re­quests for State lands for re­li­gious rea­sons, he said all can­not be grant­ed as some peo­ple use it for prof­it. He said that while the Gov­ern­ment will en­sure that all le­git­i­mate faith re­ceive gov­ern­ment’s help, he warned that it was not a “free for all” and on­ly those re­quests cur­rent­ly be­fore the min­istry will be con­sid­ered. He said the Gov­ern­ment has to en­sure that the lands will be used for its in­tend­ed pur­pose, as places of wor­ship, ed­u­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices, emer­gency shel­ters, soup kitchens, schools and home­work cen­tres.

He said that there have been ad­min­is­tra­tive and bu­reau­crat­ic chal­lenges, but the Gov­ern­ment is about to con­firm a num­ber of these ap­pli­ca­tions.

With re­spect to the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain, he said there are 25 files, which in­cludes the re­lo­ca­tion of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, La Ro­maine. He said that Cab­i­net has agreed on the new site and dis­cus­sion are be­ing held with the Arch­dio­cese.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha has 13 files, which in­clud­ed long-stand­ing is­sues for schools and tem­ples. He said oth­er re­quest in­cludes a Mus­lim ceme­tery for Princes Town, the Methodist Church in Mal­oney, the Pen­te­costals in Rio Claro and re­pairs to the Mon­trose Vedic Pri­ma­ry School.

New ini­tia­tive for first-time of­fend­ers

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so an­nounced a new ini­tia­tive for church­es to part­ner with the Gov­ern­ment to re­form first-time of­fend­ers rather than hav­ing them serve a prison sen­tence.

He said the Gov­ern­ment is will­ing to al­lo­cate State lands for this pur­pose, but re­quires good stand­ing cit­i­zens to help.

“We are al­so talk­ing with the church to cre­ate in this coun­try, some­thing new where the out­reach of the church can help the State deal with its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for re­spond­ing to crim­i­nal­i­ty among young peo­ple. We are talk­ing here about the cre­ation, some­where in Trinidad and To­ba­go, most like­ly in Trinidad, a place for a first (time) of­fend­ers in­sti­tute where if a young per­son runs afoul of the law, on that first oc­ca­sion, that this in­sti­tute can take them and guide them back rather than them go­ing to prison. Be­cause we know that the prison breeds more pris­on­ers.

“The Gov­ern­ment is go­ing through the ap­pro­pri­ate arrange­ment with the rel­e­vant ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal body or bod­ies to cre­ate the in­sti­tute or its sem­blance so that the Ju­di­cia­ry and oth­ers, in­clud­ing par­ents, can find pro­grammes in that place, which is not a prison, where young of­fend­ers could be put back on a path­way of which we can all be proud. And if that may in­volve some State lands and out of it may come some cit­i­zens who can rise to the ex­pec­ta­tion, whether it is in farm­ing, in med­i­cine, in teach­ing or sim­ply be­ing a re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zen of which we will have no fear.”