Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Re­porter

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

An­oth­er re­li­gious leader is call­ing for a re­newed com­mit­ment to spir­i­tu­al val­ues amid mount­ing con­cern over what some view as the grow­ing sex­u­al­i­sa­tion of Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

In an in­ter­view at the Hayes Court Ash Wednes­day Mass, An­gli­can Bish­op the Rev­erend Claude Berkley said he sup­ports the re­cent com­ments made by Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don con­demn­ing Car­ni­val band Tribe for dis­trib­ut­ing adult toys to fe­male pa­trons.

“I do not sub­scribe to the idea that once you say Car­ni­val, that is sin­ful,” Berkley said. “We have a par­tic­u­lar his­to­ry; we have mat­ters of re­sis­tance and rit­u­als which help to strength­en our iden­ti­ty. Hav­ing said that, that does not mean in­de­cent, naked, vul­gar, rude or even op­pres­sive be­hav­iour to­ward one an­oth­er.”

Berkley ac­knowl­edged that Gor­don’s re­marks sparked con­tro­ver­sy but said the Arch­bish­op’s mes­sage went be­yond a sin­gle in­ci­dent and point­ed to a broad­er is­sue of how cit­i­zens treat each oth­er.

“We’ve gone too far. I agree with the Arch­bish­op, al­though I don’t think there was a good grasp of the point he was mak­ing,” Berkley said. “I think the Arch­bish­op was speak­ing in a gen­er­al sense—that over­all, we’ve gone too far. Of course, a par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dent was high­light­ed, and that al­so fits in­to it, that we are to be re­spon­si­ble in our sex­u­al be­hav­iour.”

In his ser­mon to parish­ioners, Berkley stressed that Lent is not about “wash­ing away Car­ni­val sin,” but about re­pen­tance and spir­i­tu­al re­new­al.

“I want to make the point right away that Ash Wednes­day and Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day have no re­al re­la­tion,” he said. “In coun­tries where there is no Car­ni­val, to­day is still Ash Wednes­day, dic­tat­ed by the church’s cal­en­dar. Some­times peo­ple sug­gest that they go to Car­ni­val to sin—as if it is on­ly at Car­ni­val that peo­ple sin—and then come af­ter­wards to re­ceive ash­es. That is a se­ri­ous mis­nomer.”

He ex­plained that the church, in its wis­dom, set aside a pe­ri­od for pen­i­tents to re­new their com­mit­ment to God.

“This is such a time. It be­gins with the ash­es and the or­der,” he said.

Berkley urged Chris­tians to use the Lenten sea­son to pray for the na­tion amid on­go­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

“The is­sues of crime and vi­o­lence, un­em­ploy­ment, the dif­fi­cul­ty of eco­nom­ic times and all the chal­lenges be­fore us—we are strength­ened to face them and to move for­ward,” he said. “In the end, we are called to be­come a com­mu­ni­ty of love, to pull to­geth­er all of God’s peo­ple, to re­spond to Almighty God and to each oth­er in ways that will make us a peace­ful na­tion, a hap­py na­tion and a na­tion com­mit­ted to good­will and the com­mon good for all.”

Some parish­ioners al­so shared their ex­pec­ta­tions for the Lenten sea­son.

Aysha Alexan­der, a 19-year-old cler­i­cal as­sis­tant from La Brea, said she in­tends to fo­cus on per­son­al growth.

“I plan to work on self-im­prove­ment and dis­ci­pline—self-dis­ci­pline—as well as re­spect­ing and lov­ing my­self, be­cause in or­der to love our neigh­bours, we must love our­selves first,” she said. “I want to en­sure that what I do is in line with my spir­i­tu­al life.”

Mean­while, the Rev­erend Her­mes Dun­can, who as­sist­ed with the Mass, said she hopes to be more in­ten­tion­al with her time.

“There are many dis­trac­tions, not least of which is the phone,” she said. “My prayer is to be more in­ten­tion­al and to de­vote the time I would spend doom-scrolling to con­struc­tive en­deav­ours—study­ing, read­ing and med­i­tat­ing.”

Mass at­tendee Stan Hug­gins said he will be giv­ing up al­co­hol for the sea­son.

“I take a drink oc­ca­sion­al­ly, es­pe­cial­ly at a small func­tion,” he said. “But that is one spir­it. The spir­it we should hold on to is the Holy Spir­it, be­cause that is the spir­it that guides us. Most peo­ple be­lieve that that liq­uid spir­it is what we need to sur­vive. We don’t need it.”