Gail Alexan­der

Lead­ers of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent re­li­gious faiths have called on their re­spec­tive flocks to in­ten­si­fy prayers for T&T in the face of the re­cent spike in mur­der rate and acts of vi­o­lence.The Chris­t­ian Coun­cil of Church­es (CCC), in­volv­ing var­i­ous church­es, will voice out­cry and con­cern on the prob­lem in its up­com­ing Palm Sun­day pro­ces­sion, ac­cord­ing to head of the An­gli­can Church, Bish­op Claude Berke­ley.

In this week­end's Catholic News, Arch­bish­op Joseph Har­ris said he had man­dat­ed a spe­cial prayer against crime and vi­o­lence be re­cit­ed twice dai­ly, morn­ing and af­ter­noon, in all Catholic pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools in the arch­dio­cese.Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha gen­er­al sec­re­tary Sat Ma­haraj said the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty's prayers for T&T on the crime sit­u­a­tion were on­go­ing.

Ma­haraj, ex­press­ing con­cern about the prob­lem, said it would es­pe­cial­ly af­fect the com­mu­ni­ty over March 9 when Hin­dus ob­serve the Shi­va Ra­tri with a se­ries of prayers over a 24-hour vig­il that night, main­ly by the com­mu­ni­ty's wom­en­folk.He added: "Be­cause of the crime sit­u­a­tion it will be dif­fi­cult for com­mu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate prop­er­ly since peo­ple may have to trav­el to get to places for the night of prayer. We have alert­ed peo­ple to pro­tect them­selves.

"We the peo­ple are caught in the mid­dle of what seems to be gang war­fare and we are deeply con­cerned about the politi­cis­ing of the crime is­sue. "It doesn't seem the politi­cians, on all sides, re­al­ly want to solve the prob­lem. They seem more con­cerned about scor­ing po­lit­i­cal points. It seems the rise in crime isn't af­fect­ing them at all, on all sides. It seems we are not com­ing to­geth­er on this."

Lead­ers Speak

Pres­by­ter­ian head: Have hope

Pres­by­ter­ian mod­er­a­tor Bren­da Bul­lock said de­spite dis­cour­ag­ing times and the lev­el of de­prav­i­ty be­ing seen, "we have to have hope."She said the Pres­by­ter­ian Syn­od­i­cal Coun­cil last Thurs­day fi­nalised a pro­gramme for all pas­toral re­gions to be­gin next month a round of out­door prayer ac­tiv­i­ties and gath­er­ing with the pub­lic to pro­vide sup­port.She said such gath­er­ings would be held in car parks, and oth­er out­door venues to lend com­fort to the pub­lic in the "try­ing pe­ri­od."

What AS­JA said

AS­JA vice chair­man Is­mail Mo­hammed said AS­JA's board, which meets on Sun­day, would de­cide how it would go about help­ing mem­bers and T&T to cope with the prob­lem.Mo­hammed said AS­JA re­cent­ly im­ple­ment­ed a pro­gramme with school prin­ci­pals from all de­nom­i­na­tions to em­pha­sise with stu­dents the prin­ci­ples of love, kind­ness, re­spect and ho­n­our and to stay away from crime.

An­gli­can Bish­op speaks

Bish­op Berke­ley said An­gli­can church­es, prayer groups, parish units and its Lenten car­a­van, tra­vers­ing T&T, have been giv­ing spe­cial prayer for the fight against the crime prob­lem and to strength­en peo­ple. "We have been pray­ing for vic­tim per­pe­tra­tors, pro­tec­tive ser­vices, ju­di­cial sys­tem and all T&T con­cern­ing this shroud of un­cer­tain­ty over­head," he added.Berke­ley said the CCC would spe­cial­ly high­light out­cry against crime in its March 31 Palm Sun­day pro­ces­sion.The CCC in­volves the An­gli­can, Ro­man Catholic, Mora­vian, Methodist, Sal­va­tion Army, African Methodist Epis­co­pal and oth­er groups.Berke­ley said a church team has been col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty since the ac­ci­dent there on Feb­ru­ary 24.