Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

While the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has a role to play in re­duc­ing crime, Ro­man Catholic cler­gy­man Mon­sign­or Chris­t­ian Pereira told his con­gre­ga­tion yes­ter­day that they must al­so play a part in re­duc­ing crime and vi­o­lence, par­tic­u­lar­ly against women and chil­dren. De­liv­er­ing the Cor­pus Christi ser­mon at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help church at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, Pereira called on wor­ship­pers to adopt a "Eu­charist spir­it" to­wards their fel­low­men, as this would re­duce in­ci­dents of crime and vi­o­lence. "There is too much vi­o­lence in our so­ci­ety, so much adults are abus­ing chil­dren and so much men are dis­re­spect­ing women," he said.

"While the politi­cians and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must play their part to cor­rect this, we have an­oth­er op­tion. "We must have in our lives a Eu­charist spir­it of ado­ra­tion...We must in­cul­cate a spir­it of rev­er­ence in all of us and this will re­duce crime, dis­re­spect and vi­o­lence in our so­ci­ety." Pereira al­so called on the con­gre­ga­tion to re­claim the spir­it of Catholi­cism in their lives. "We must re-en­gi­neer the Catholic cul­ture and iden­ti­ty," he said. "We must deep­en and nur­ture our Catholic fam­i­lies in a man­ner that we will trans­form so­ci­ety, rather than the so­ci­ety trans­form­ing us."

He al­so called on wor­ship­pers to make space in their lives for oth­ers who are not of the Catholic faith.

"Our faith re­quires us to have a will­ing­ness to share space and to make room for oth­ers," Pereira said.

"We must make hos­pi­tal­i­ty our spe­cial boast and we must chal­lenge our­selves top have an open heart to oth­ers. "We must say that my space is God's space which I must share with oth­ers," he added.

The Catholic cler­gy­man lament­ed that too of­ten peo­ple were un­will­ing to em­brace change and so they re­mained stag­nant. Fol­low­ing the homi­ly, paris­hon­ers sang hymns be­fore em­bark­ing on a pro­ces­sion through the streets, car­ry­ing ban­ners and flags.

Cor­pus Christi, which start­ed in the year 1264, was first cel­e­brat­ed in Trinidad when the Spaniards hand­ed over colo­nial con­trol to the British in 1797. In that year, a treaty was signed in which there were sev­er­al ar­ti­cles, among them an agree­ment that Cor­pus Christi would re­main a pub­lic hol­i­day.