Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Pope Leo XIV has ap­point­ed Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don a mem­ber of the Di­cas­t­ery for In­ter­re­li­gious Di­a­logue.

Gor­don is one of 22 mem­bers of the Di­cas­t­ery which in­cludes promi­nent names such as Car­di­nal Pier­bat­tista Piz­z­a­bal­la from Jerusalem and Arch­bish­op Mitchell Thomas Rozan­s­ki from the Unit­ed States.

The Di­cas­t­ery for In­ter­re­li­gious Di­a­logue pro­motes and su­per­vis­es re­la­tions with mem­bers and groups of non-Chris­t­ian re­li­gions, with the ex­cep­tion of Ju­daism, com­pe­tence for which be­longs to the Di­cas­t­ery for Pro­mot­ing Chris­t­ian Uni­ty.

It is the Di­cas­t­ery’s task to as­sist dioce­san/eparchial bish­ops (bish­ops in dif­fer­ent parts of the world) in the for­ma­tion of those who en­gage in in­ter­re­li­gious di­a­logue.

In a video state­ment, Gor­don said: “At first, I thought fake news, for sure, and then when I checked in with the Nun­cia­ture, I re­alised it re­al­ly was so, and it re­al­ly was on the Vat­i­can web­site.

“As a con­sul­tor in the Di­cas­t­ery for In­ter­re­li­gious Di­a­logue that would be the role I would be play­ing. Yes, it’s hum­bling to be asked to serve but that’s why I gave my life to serve the church in any and every lev­el that I’ve been asked.”

Gor­don said his mind­set has been what­ev­er is asked of him to put his best foot for­ward. He con­clud­ed his mes­sage by ask­ing the faith­ful to pray for him and the church as he em­barked on this “whole new ad­ven­ture.” He re­mem­bered for­mer arch­bish­op An­tho­ny Pan­tin for whom in­ter­re­li­gious di­a­logue was a key ini­tia­tive.

The An­tilles Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ence, of which Gor­don is pres­i­dent, said: “This ap­point­ment re­flects the Holy Fa­ther’s con­fi­dence in the An­tilles Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ence and in par­tic­u­lar in Arch­bish­op Gor­don’s long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing di­a­logue, un­der­stand­ing, and col­lab­o­ra­tion among peo­ple of dif­fer­ent faith tra­di­tions.

“His Grace joins a dis­tin­guished group of car­di­nals, arch­bish­ops, bish­ops, and vic­ars from around the world in this im­por­tant min­istry of pro­mot­ing peace and mu­tu­al re­spect among re­li­gions.”

Re­act­ing to the news, the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), which Gor­don has worked with lo­cal­ly, praised the Pope’s ap­point­ment. Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Rahi­mool Ho­sein said: “AS­JA would like to con­grat­u­late him on this re­cent ap­point­ment. We do look for­ward to hav­ing dis­cus­sions with him and with the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty world­wide. From my in­ter­ac­tions with him, I have found him to be a very fair, ar­tic­u­late per­son of good char­ac­ter.”

In Jan­u­ary, the late Pope Fran­cis ap­point­ed Gor­don apos­tolic ad­min­is­tra­tor to the Dio­cese of Willem­stad, Cu­ra­cao.