Priest wants end to killings

ROMAN Catholic priest Fr Urban Hudlin yesterday called for peace in Trinidad and Tobago. “We want peace, but there can be no peace unless there is justice. We want an end to violence and killings. We want God and we want to share the spirit.” Fr Hudlin delivered the sermon at the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service 17th annual inter-faith service held yesterday at the St Dominic’s Roman Catholic Church in Morvant. In attendance at the service was President  George Maxwell Richards, who, accompanied by acting Commissioner of Police Everard Snaggs, led the procession into the church. The theme for the mass was “A Time of Challenge, A Time To Be Renewed.”

Representative of the Hindu, Bahai and Orisha faiths all stuck to the theme as they delivered their prayers. But Fr Hudlin, while delivering his sermon, went into the subject with more vigour by initially questioning who and what were we as a people. He said that there was an energy and liveliness in our people that made us a better people. He boasted of our unity and that we took pride in our liberty. He also reminisced about the 1969 Task Force Commission led by the late Archbishop Anthony Pantin that didn’t think that we had such great problems to warrant action. “But what is happening here in our sweet home is that we are in a time of struggle between light and darkness and good and evil. This is it for us. We will never see it through. The travail we are in is a preamble to the end but not the end,” said Fr Hudlin.

He  added that it was not the first time that people have gone through such immorality and atrocities.  He said it has happened before in a period of history with the destruction of the Roman Empire, but all things come to an end. Fr Hudlin went on: “When the world ends, there are casualties. People take flight, or a quick fix, or are in denial, or the attitude: ‘what’s the point of everything.’ When a world ends, people need a kind of stubbornness but must seek new ways to go on.” Fr Hudlin added, “Humanity is not exhausted, as long as people are dreaming of their liberation. The people who are exhausted are the ones who think that they can’t go on. There is no exhaustion for a nation just 41 years old,” he said, and then told the TTPS that the Star of David is guiding them. He warned members of the service that those who are exhausted among them should clear the way for dreamers who want to bring about change.

Fr Hudlin then prayed for officers, who through their line of duty became separated from their families, and during the sign of peace the Police band played a soothing rendition of “Let There Be Peace On Earth.” Following that, a female officer sang a soulful version of “My Redeemer Lives,” which earned her generous applause upon completion of the song. Then towards the end of the service, the band played “Be Not Afraid,” as Fr Hudlin blessed members of the service by rank.