Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

The death of Pope Fran­cis should serve as a pow­er­ful re­minder to politi­cians about the true mean­ing of pub­lic ser­vice as T&T ap­proach­es elec­tions, says Fr David Khan, Parish Priest of Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church in San Fer­nan­do.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia hours af­ter news broke that Pope Fran­cis had died, Fa­ther Khan re­vealed that the Pro Cathe­dral was plan­ning to have a re­quiem holy mass since learn­ing of the death on East­er Mon­day.

“Pope Fran­cis con­sis­tent­ly re­mind­ed po­lit­i­cal lead­ers that pub­lic ser­vice is a no­ble vo­ca­tion, root­ed in moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Fr Khan said.

He not­ed that the pass­ing of Pope Fran­cis marks the end of a pa­pa­cy that coura­geous­ly sought to bring the Gospel to the pe­riph­eries: ge­o­graph­i­cal, ex­is­ten­tial, and spir­i­tu­al.

“Here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, his lead­er­ship res­onat­ed deeply with many, par­tic­u­lar­ly through his ad­vo­ca­cy for the poor, his em­pha­sis on mer­cy over judg­ment, and his tire­less call for in­te­gral hu­man de­vel­op­ment,” Fr Khan said.

He added: “As we ap­proach a gen­er­al elec­tion, our na­tion stands at a crit­i­cal cross­roads. Pope Fran­cis con­sis­tent­ly re­mind­ed po­lit­i­cal lead­ers that pub­lic ser­vice is a no­ble vo­ca­tion, root­ed in moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, care for the most vul­ner­a­ble, and stew­ard­ship of cre­ation.”

Fr Khan said the Pope’s warn­ings against cor­rup­tion, in­equal­i­ty, and in­dif­fer­ence to the suf­fer­ing of oth­ers should echo loud­ly in T&T’s na­tion­al con­science.

“May this mo­ment of glob­al mourn­ing al­so be­come a mo­ment of na­tion­al awak­en­ing—one that in­spires lead­ers and cit­i­zens alike to walk a path of jus­tice, truth, and hope,” he said.

In ho­n­our­ing the mem­o­ry of Pope Fran­cis, Fr Khan urged cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing politi­cians, to com­mit them­selves to build­ing a coun­try that re­flects the val­ues Pope Fran­cis lived by—val­ues of com­pas­sion, hu­mil­i­ty, and un­wa­ver­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mar­gin­alised.

Pope Fran­cis, the head of the Ro­man Catholic Church, died on East­er Mon­day at the age of 88. His death came just hours af­ter Catholics around the world cel­e­brat­ed the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus Christ, the holi­est day on the Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar.