Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of new­ly ap­point­ed Pope Fran­cis, Arch­bish­op Joseph Har­ris said he want­ed to make the lo­cal Ro­man Catholic Church a church for the poor.He was speak­ing at a spe­cial thanks­giv­ing mass for Pope Fran­cis held at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church on Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

"I will ap­point a com­mit­tee to study the ways in which we can em­brace the no­tion of be­ing a church for the poor and to sug­gest ways in which this can tru­ly be re­flect­ed in the life and ac­tiv­i­ty of every parish in our arch­dio­cese," Har­ris said.

The arch­bish­op, who cel­e­brates his birth­day to­mor­row, said there must be trans­for­ma­tion in the Ro­man Catholic Church. Not­ing that Fran­cis is the first non-Eu­ro­pean Pope in over 1,000 years, Har­ris said: "He is from Latin Amer­i­ca. The Caribbean forms parts of Latin Amer­i­ca and as such he is from our re­gion. He is a tru­ly Lati­no Caribbean per­son."

Har­ris al­so told the con­gre­ga­tion that they must em­brace those who have sinned."The good news is that God deals with all of us in a non-con­dem­na­to­ry way. He en­cour­ages us to sin no more. To­day we have a pope who calls us as in­di­vid­u­als and as a church to self-ex­am­i­na­tion as Je­sus called the Scribes and the Phar­isees to self-ex­am­i­na­tion," said Har­ris.

"How of­ten are chil­dren just pawns in the games of lit­i­ga­tion be­tween es­tranged par­ents? How of­ten are peo­ple and dis­tricts just pawns in the po­lit­i­cal strug­gle for pow­er? How of­ten does this hap­pens even with­in the church?"He called on his con­gre­ga­tion to pray for the new pope.

"We must pray for Pope Fran­cis that his faith must not fail. As we thank God for the news of Fran­cis, let's not for­get the good news of Pope Bene­dict XVI who taught us how to recog­nise the mo­ment when to give up pow­er and not to hang on to it," Har­ris said.Wor­ship­pers from sev­er­al parish­es at­tend­ed the mass.