Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Thou­sands of Catholics con­gre­gat­ed at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day for the 2025 Eu­charis­tic Con­gress. The event came as the lo­cal Ro­man Catholic Church marks 175 years this year since the es­tab­lish­ment of the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain.

A Eu­charis­tic Con­gress is a gath­er­ing of Catholics, both cler­gy and laity, to fo­cus on and cel­e­brate the Eu­charist, which is the source and sum­mit of the church’s life.

In his homi­ly, Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don called on cit­i­zens to be silent and lis­ten to God. As the Arch­dio­cese marked a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone, Gor­don chal­lenged Catholics across the coun­try to “bend their hearts to the will of God.”

He said: “Our re­bel­lion against the will of God, our re­bel­lion against God, our de­sire to do our own thing and go our own way, that be­longs to the first 175 years. It doesn’t be­long to the next 175 years.”

Arch­bish­op Gor­don said if every Catholic lived the will of God each day, “crime could not be what it is in our na­tion right now, un­em­ploy­ment couldn’t be what it is, our mi­grants couldn’t be left be­hind the way they have been.”

He said if cit­i­zens do the will of God, the na­tion will be­come “a most beau­ti­ful place to be and racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion could not hap­pen in this land.”

He told the gath­er­ing that their iden­ti­ties are not where their fore­fa­thers came from or the coun­try in which they were born, but their core iden­ti­ties are that of God.

The Eu­charis­tic Con­gress marked the cul­mi­na­tion of a ten-day jour­ney in faith for the lo­cal Catholic com­mu­ni­ty. The day start­ed with a wel­come ad­dress by Gor­don fol­lowed by an open­ing cer­e­mo­ny filled with colour and cul­ture. There was eu­charis­tic ado­ra­tion for a half-hour fol­lowed by a holy hour and eu­charis­tic pro­ces­sion

In at­ten­dance was Arch­bish­op of Cas­tries Gabriel Malzaire. The con­gress cul­mi­nat­ed with holy mass.

Car­di­nal Luis An­to­nio Tagle from the Philip­pines was sched­uled to de­liv­er the keynote ad­dress, how­ev­er, with the pass­ing of Pope Fran­cis on April 21 and the start of the con­clave on May 7, he could no longer trav­el for the event.