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Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Fr Khan: Pope Francis’ death a lesson in leadership for T&T

by

Radhica De Silva
50 days ago
20250421
Parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help RC Church Father David Khan leads parishioners on the annual Stations of the Cross in San Fernando on Good Friday

Parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help RC Church Father David Khan leads parishioners on the annual Stations of the Cross in San Fernando on Good Friday

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

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.

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