KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The qui­et still­ness of St Bene­dict’s RC Church in La Ro­maine was shat­tered ear­ly Mon­day when a gang of bur­glars broke in­to the pres­bytery, ty­ing up and rob­bing Priest Fr Derek An­ton. By yes­ter­day, work­men were al­ready chang­ing the locks, but the shak­en mood across the com­pound lin­gered heav­i­ly in the air.

Priest in Res­i­dence, Fr Jayson Grell, re­flect­ed on how far so­ci­ety had drift­ed from the val­ues that once held fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties to­geth­er.

“Long ago, when you heard in­ci­dents like this, you would nev­er think of go­ing in­to a pres­bytery or in­to a church to steal or to van­dalise. That would be con­sid­ered in­sane; you were crazy. It says to me that when you hear of these in­ci­dents, there is a break­down in fam­i­ly val­ues,” Grell said.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 1.10 am, a 22-year-old se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer no­ticed a bright light out­side his booth and, up­on in­ves­ti­gat­ing, en­coun­tered five men dressed in dark cloth­ing, hood­ies, masks, and gloves. They or­dered him on­to the ground and tied his hands and feet with rope.

Two of the in­trud­ers re­mained with the of­fi­cer, while the oth­ers moved across the com­pound, break­ing in­to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fice, dis­con­nect­ing the T&TEC me­ter, smash­ing a door, and ran­sack­ing the build­ing. They then en­tered the priests’ quar­ters, where 69-year-old An­ton was asleep.

Af­ter cut­ting the elec­tric­i­ty by re­mov­ing an­oth­er T&TEC me­ter, the bur­glars woke An­ton, forced him on­to his stom­ach, and tied his hands and feet with tie straps. They stole his Ap­ple iPhone 8 val­ued at $1,000, a wal­let con­tain­ing $170, and the pre­vi­ous day’s of­fer­ings be­fore es­cap­ing.

Re­spond­ing of­fi­cers ob­served a hole in a wire fence on the west­ern side of the com­pound, be­lieved to be the point of en­try and ex­it. Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered a quan­ti­ty of cash in an en­ve­lope be­hind a build­ing.

The Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain con­firmed the in­ci­dent and said it was un­der ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion, call­ing for prayers for An­ton, the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, and all vic­tims of crime.

Stand­ing in the church yes­ter­day, Grell lament­ed that the in­ci­dent was not sim­ply an at­tack on a priest but a symp­tom of a deep­er so­ci­etal de­cay. He said so­ci­ety was wit­ness­ing a steady rise in in­va­sions, dis­re­spect for el­ders, and dis­re­gard for au­thor­i­ty.

“Some­thing is not right, and so, we re­al­ly need to get back to what sus­tains fam­i­ly life. What kept us to­geth­er many years ago? It is our faith in Je­sus Christ, and a long time ago, what you would see hap­pen­ing is fam­i­lies pray­ing to­geth­er. The fam­i­ly that prays to­geth­er, stays to­geth­er.”

He added that while these crimes oc­cur glob­al­ly, T&T should not ac­cept these acts as nor­mal.

“That is not who we are.”

Grell said the root of the prob­lem be­gan with­in the home, urg­ing par­ents to take a deep­er role in nur­tur­ing chil­dren’s aware­ness, self-worth, and sense of di­rec­tion. Yet with ad­vances in tech­nol­o­gy, he ques­tioned whether fam­i­lies were con­nect­ing in mean­ing­ful ways.

“When we have things like home in­va­sions, kid­nap­ping, vi­o­lence, and crime, those things do not sit well with a coun­try. It does not sit well with so­ci­ety. It shows there is a break­down in fam­i­ly val­ues … I think it’s time for self-in­tro­spec­tion for all of us.”

Mon­day’s bur­glary adds to a list of break-ins at church­es and Hin­du tem­ples over the last few years, where crim­i­nals have stolen a church bell and gold, des­e­crat­ed holy grounds, and de­stroyed mur­tis.

Grell said every­one has a role to play in the build­ing of so­ci­ety. There is no easy fix from gov­ern­ment or lead­er­ship alone. “Col­lec­tive­ly, so­ci­ety has to sit down, analyse where it is, and look at the fam­i­ly. Pray with fam­i­lies, lis­ten to each oth­er, and see how we can make T&T, the Caribbean, and the world a bet­ter place.”