We must look at ourselves first

THE EDITOR: I have been reading a lot of articles in our local newspapers concerning the Roman Catholic church and I decided that I should write this letter to inform a lot of people of my view on this matter and our present crime situation in this country so I would appreciate if you can publish my letter in your newspaper.

As a Catholic and a member of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal I feel very hurt to know how people are trying to destroy the church by writing, criticising and comparing our church with many little churches instead of taking ten minutes of the day to pray for our religious and lay ministers. First of all the Catholic church was the only one Christian church founded by Peter, so our church is the Universal church; secondly our leaders don’t go around bad talking other religions. In the contrary respect all religious denominations keeping in mind and focusing in what they have to do. Mother Teresa used to say “I love all religions but I love mine the best”. People in this country have been bad talking our church without noticing that our church is very much alive and great things are happening within.

Many times we hear of how many Roman Catholics have left the Catholic church, but we never hear of how many have come back, how many people from other religious denominations are being helped every day by many religious and community leaders, how many people have been healed by the laying of hands of members of our church, how many people have been educated in Catholic schools, how many people are being fed every day by Catholic lay people, how many great musicians and singing stars have started their careers by singing in the school choirs, how many Catholic doctors and nurses go beyond the call of duty to make sure that they can help the sick while others strike. How many priests and religious are in 24 hours call to help people no matter what religion or race they belong to?

The Roman Catholics that have left the church are those that have kept away, too busy with their material world unable them to learn and get involved in the activities and programmes that the church has to offer, they expect to stay away from God and then get immediate relief when troubles come around. They look for immediate solutions to their financial and family problems. Instead of praying and asking the Lord for wisdom, they are looking for people to tell them who and why they have been harmed instead of looking at themselves and asking what they did wrong.

The Lord gives and He takes it back. He punishes us when we do wrong because he wants us to repent of our wrong doings. It is simple. Our society has been suffering by the presence of all those who call themselves psychics who have been manipulating the minds of our people allowing Satan to take control of our families and destroy relationships. It is sad that people including our Government leaders prefer to pay the fortune tellers and the obeah persons fantastic fees allowing them to visit their homes and allowing them to predict disasters, remember while godly people speak the word of God, they speak the word of Satan causing confusion in families and the society. Instead they should spend time feeding the poor or giving a donation to the church to help them with their work. Our people would put a dollar in the donation basket in the Catholic church but would go to another church and give a tithe of ten percent of their income. Some government leaders want to punish the man that steals giving them long sentences in jail but demand bribes for favours and exploit the poor.

In this society honesty is hard to come by today, again the greatest and dear friends try to rob their friend from a dollar. It is simple, how can a poor man be blamed for the drug trade when he never had the money to buy it in the first place when it started to come to this country? When the so-called drug lords started to make millions putting pressure on honest citizens of our society, they never sat down and thought on the repercussions of the drug trade; they never read or got informed of how this trade has destroyed so many countries and cause so much of pain to people all over the world. Why are you allowed to spoil a beautiful and peaceful country like ours for the sake of money ... murders, kidnappings are all being originated by the drug trade. I must admit that I was asked by a nun to give a list of VIP’s that would be attending a religious occasion and I spent the entire week and I could not find a VIP, then I say to myself it is so funny the nuns are the only VIPs that should be attending

The Catholic church teaches us that forgiveness is healing, Jesus said go and sin no more. In order to start to clean up our wrong doings we must start by asking God to remove all the pan, hatred and illness from our hearts because this is being caused by the refusal to forgive or being forgiven. Forgiveness is not an easy process. It can involve resistance, shame and struggle. We must say I am sorry and start looking at our wrong doings, start with our family, our friends, our community, our society and our country. “All creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For creation was condemned to lose his purpose, not of his own will, but because God willed to be so. Yet there was hope that creation one day will be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that up to the present time all the creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth. But is not just creation alone which groans” we who have the Spirit as the first of God’s gifts also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us his children and set our whole being free.” (Romans 8: 19-23) Good News Bible. As I close this article I must admit that if everyone of us try to change our lives and focus where we are wrong this country can come back to be the paradise that it used to be a few years ago. May God bless us all.

BEATRIZ RAMOUTARSINGH
Port-of-Spain