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Thursday, July 17, 2025

RC Archbishop blames social inequalities for child deaths

by

20140620

Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Joseph Har­ris yes­ter­day blamed this coun­try's re­cent spate of child deaths on a num­ber of so­cial in­equal­i­ties plagu­ing so­ci­ety.Har­ris was at the time de­liv­er­ing the homi­ly to hun­dreds of Catholics at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, for the Cor­pus Christi ser­vice ahead of the pro­ces­sion to In­de­pen­dence Square."Un­til ex­clu­sion and in­equal­i­ty in so­ci­ety and be­tween peo­ple are re­versed it will be im­pos­si­ble to elim­i­nate vi­o­lence," Har­ris said."In­deed here in T&T, the call for greater se­cu­ri­ty res­onates in all our hearts but as Pope Fran­cis has re­mind­ed us, un­til the ex­clu­sion and in­equal­i­ty in our coun­try is re­versed, the in­se­cu­ri­ty we feel will in­crease, it will not end.

Har­ris list­ed these in­equal­i­ties as that be­tween the salaries of ex­ec­u­tives and work­ers, in­equal­i­ties in le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, ac­cess to health­care and hous­ing, and the in­equal­i­ty in ac­cess to job and ed­u­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties.He said the in­se­cu­ri­ty would con­tin­ue to plague the na­tion in spite of the best in­ten­tions of many."These in­equal­i­ties con­tribute in no small mea­sure to the spate of chil­dren deaths. there have been 15 since March," Har­ris said.He said while the na­tion was quick to place blame, it was im­por­tant for peo­ple to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty."When these dis­as­ters oc­cur, do our hearts go out with com­pas­sion of God to par­ents and fam­i­lies?""Let us ask our­selves what if any help we have giv­en as in­di­vid­u­als and what can we and should we do as in­di­vid­u­als?"

Har­ris said the world con­tin­ued to be­come more and more bereft of moral val­ues.He said the cul­ture of T&T was ex­treme­ly in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic and self-serv­ing, with an ac­cent on up­ward mo­bil­i­ty.He said the re­sult of the ac­cep­tance of lack of moral val­ues was greed which spawned cor­rup­tion, var­i­ous fi­nan­cial melt­downs and the un­der­ground busi­ness of drugs and guns."I think we would all agree that our so­ci­ety is sick."This sick­ness will not nec­es­sar­i­ly lead to death. The rem­e­dy is in our hands," Har­ris said.


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