Bishop Harvey: I want to make a difference

Harvey, 68, was officially installed as Bishop in an ordination ceremony, yesterday, at the Spice Basket Auditorium, Beaulieu, St Georges.

The ceremony was witnessed by a large contingent of local priests and parishioners from the various communities in which Harvey ministered in Trinidad and Tobago.

In an interview at Archbishop’s House, Port-of-Spain, on Monday, hours before his departure, Harvey said it was in Grenada, more than four decades ago, that he took the decision to enter the priesthood.

He recalled while teaching at the Seminary, late Archbishop Anthony Pantin had urged him to think clearly about the move.

As fate would have it, Harvey had also been invited to Grenada to lead priests and parishioners in a weekend of introspection to determine the way forward for the church on the island.

“It was a great weekend,” he said of the visit in the 1970s.

“It was so affirming of all that I had spent three years studying in some depth and I came back home and I said to myself, I think I will go forward to the priesthood.

“I knew I would go forward but I always knew it would not be easy. But I met some wonderful Grenadians and I hope to meet them again.” Fast forward to 2017.

Harvey was chosen by the Vatican to lead the church’s flock in Grenada, an appointment he welcomes.

“God has been so good to me over the past six months and there have been so many surprises that have both challenged and strengthened me that I can’t help but think that it is with trust in God I am going to Grenada,” he said. But there is another reason why this towering man of the cloth loves Grenada.

“It is one of those countries in the Caribbean where we see the resilience of Caribbean people.” Recalling the hurricanes that have ravaged the island and the socio-political turmoil to which Grenadian have long been subjected, Harvey said: “They have come through and everybody will tell you it’s a wonderful island.” Harvey said he also has paid attention to what many people might consider mundane occurrences.

“There is a healthy respect for people in Grenada. The people at Customs and Immigration, they show you a basic respect, and from that comes other things. You walk the streets of St Georges and there is that fundamental respect.” However, Harvey said he was aware of the challenges at the level of the Catholic church.

“The fact that you are given charge of a diocese, the Catholic church believes that as a Bishop, you are Chief Shepherd in the diocese.

You are Christ in the diocese and it places a tremendous responsibility on you to know the sheep, the people entrusted to your care, and to seek to do always what is in their best interest according to the mind of Christ, and that is not easy.” In fact, Harvey sees his role as extremely critical given the dwindling Catholic congregations on the island.

“I have already said that I need at least five years to make some difference on the island.” He said in some instances, the situation reflected the state of Catholicism in other islands in the Caribbean.

“But Grenada is the worst as far as I know.” Harvey took the oath of allegiance on Thursday, ahead of yesterday’s ordination.

At Archbishop’s House, he told Sunday Newsday: “Every Bishop is required to make the profession of faith where basically you stand alone and say what the church has believed for centuries.

The interpretation of what that means has developed over the centuries. So, I hope I am in the mainstream of that development now.”