Ver­non Khelawan

Arch­bish­op Har­ris' com­ments on the e-mail scan­dal brought to the fore by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley have caused an avalanche of di­verse opin­ions out­side of the Catholic Church.

The Arch­bish­op de­fend­ed his po­si­tion by telling the coun­try he would not re­main clos­et­ed in a sac­risty when there are things to be said be­cause of sit­u­a­tions which af­fect the coun­try.

So­cial me­dia com­ments in­clud­ed "The Arch­bish­op should stay out of Pol­i­tics"; "The Catholic Church just re­ceived mon­ey from the State he should shut up." Co-in­ci­den­tal­ly a re­cent homi­ly by Pope Fran­cis pre­sent­ed a per­spec­tive which is quite ap­plic­a­ble to the lo­cal sit­u­a­tion.

Vat­i­can City, (CNA/EWTN News)–In­stead of sug­ar-coat­ed words and flat­tery, when Chris­tians speak they should of­fer the truth with love, with­out seek­ing to serve their own in­ter­ests, Pope Fran­cis said, "Let us think close­ly to­day: What is our lan­guage? Do we speak in truth, with love, or do we speak with that so­cial lan­guage to be po­lite, even say nice things which we do not feel?" the Pope asked dur­ing his June 4 homi­ly in Saint Martha's House.

Those who are cor­rupt, he added, "are try­ing to weak­en us with this lan­guage" by play­ing off a "cer­tain in­ner weak­ness," stim­u­lat­ed by "van­i­ty" that en­joys hear­ing peo­ple say good things about us.

The Holy Fa­ther's re­marks were spurred by a read­ing from Mark 12, in which a group of Phar­isees and Hero­di­ans tried to trap Je­sus by ask­ing him if Jews should pay tax­es to Cae­sar.

These men ap­proached Je­sus "with soft words, with beau­ti­ful words, with over­ly sweet words. They try to show them­selves his friends," the Pope said.

How­ev­er, all of their pos­tur­ing is false be­cause "they do not love the truth" but on­ly them­selves, Pope Fran­cis stat­ed. This re­sults in the Phar­isees try­ing to de­ceive Je­sus about the rea­son for their ques­tions. "Hypocrisy is the very lan­guage of cor­rup­tion. And when Je­sus speaks to his dis­ci­ples, he says 'let your lan­guage be, yes, yes! No, no.'"

The Pope then stressed that truth is al­ways ac­com­pa­nied by love. "There is no truth with­out love. Love is the first truth. If there is no love, there is no truth. They want a truth en­slaved to their in­ter­ests. There is a love, of sorts: it is love of self, love for one­self. That nar­cis­sist idol­a­try that leads them to be­tray oth­ers, that leads them to the abuse of trust," he told the con­gre­ga­tion.

He high­light­ed that be­tray­al by not­ing that with Je­sus, those who "seem so ami­able in their lan­guage, are the same peo­ple who will go to fetch him on Thurs­day evening in the Gar­den of Olives, and will bring him to Pi­late on Fri­day."

Je­sus' com­mand to speak truth with love stands in stark re­lief to this way of act­ing, the Pope said, as he de­scribed how it is the "lan­guage of the sim­ple, the lan­guage of a child, the lan­guage of the chil­dren of God...

"And the meek­ness that Je­sus wants us to have, has noth­ing of this adu­la­tion, this sick­ly sweet way of go­ing on. Noth­ing! Meek­ness is sim­ple, it is like that of a child. And a child is not hyp­o­crit­i­cal, be­cause it is not cor­rupt. When Je­sus says to us: 'Let your speech be, yes is yes! No is no! With the soul of a child,' he means the ex­act op­po­site to the speech of these (hyp­ocrites)."

Ver­non Khelawan is the me­dia re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Catholic Me­dia Ser­vices Ltd (Cam­sel), the of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions arm of the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain. It of­fices are lo­cat­ed at 31 In­de­pen­dence Square. Tele­phone: 623-7620.