President Richards expresses condolence to all Catholics

PRESIDENT George Maxwell Richards yesterday extended his condolence to all Catholics on the passing of Pope John Paul II. In a statement, His Excellency said although the Pope was ailing for some time and his passing seemed inevitable, “this knowledge does not lessen the sense of loss that the world must feel.” He said we in Trinidad and Tobago identify with the death and grief, because the Pope was “an extraordinary human being who did so much to influence the course of international relations for the good of the peoples of the world.

“His holiness understood the reality of human suffering, deprivation and the loss of liberty and his own experiences as a young man in his native Poland informed his determination to do whatever he could to reverse those conditions.” The President said the Pope had left a legacy of “an unremitting quest, that bore the stamp of dignity, for the consolidation of the human family across national, ethnic and religious boundaries. “His focus on those things that unite were manifest in his interventions from his seat at Rome and from his personal outreach throughout the globe which he pursued with the force of humility to the end.” His Excellency said the world was “richer for his life’s pilgrimage.”