LETTER OF THE DAY - Church should defend justice for all
Published:Saturday | August 3, 2013 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
IT IS not the case that the Church in Jamaica is asleep on the 'job' of keeping the society on a moral track, as much as it appears to have forgotten its own role in the search for justice for all citizens.
The killing of Dwayne Jones, in particular, is a matter that urgently demands a national discussion about the need for tolerance and the need to include all people in the process of justice which begins long before we address the matter of the law. Indeed, the fact that the costs of education continue to be placed out of the reach of the poor and even those who once considered themselves middle class is a telling development.
It is there that we begin the process of training minds and, therefore, educating people about their rights, roles and responsibilities in society. Admittedly, it is hard for many traditionalists to consider that we can live in an age where some of the fundamental tenets of their beliefs could be under 'attack' as indicated in the recent challenge to the colonial Buggery Act of 1864 by activist Jhaved Jaghai and others.
However, unless we simultaneously create the framework in which education and notions of good and responsible citizenship are championed, we will continue to have entire swathes of uninformed and fearful people who cannot understand how deleterious notions of 'jungle justice' are to the health of a civil society.
Church not voiceless
Indeed, it needs also be said that the Church did, in fact, comment on the death of seventy-one-year-old Roman Catholic priest, Fr Charles Brown who was abducted and killed, as well as the man who was killed on a church altar, in full view of children, one of whom was also shot in the melée. So, it is clear that there is still very much a voice within that body.
However, the question becomes how effective is said voice if the members of the Church themselves do not see they are also key to that process as well? We need to widen our vision in terms of how we see and engage with the world. That can only come from continued efforts at agitation across the body of the State.
This is not a job only for the Church, as in leaders within particular houses of worship. On the contrary, that responsibility falls to all members of the society, regardless of stripe, political colour, class, orientation, and/or religious ideology. Or the lack thereof.
The domestic Church - the family and community, is the foundation of all that makes us function as a society. Until more of us see that we are all implicated in this process, then there will, unfortunately, be more Dwayne Jones incidents and even more abductions and killings and shooting of minors.
We need to wake up. Now!
AGOSTINHO PINNOCK