Leela Ramdeen

To­mor­row is the first day of Ad­vent, the be­gin­ning of a new Litur­gi­cal Year. Pope Fran­cis has said Ad­vent is “a sea­son of ac­tive wait­ing and watch­ful­ness,” the time we can be “shak­en out of our lethar­gy and awak­ened from our slum­ber” to be vig­i­lant al­ways; “to al­ways be aware of the pres­ence of God and to wel­come Him in our dai­ly lives.”

Re­cent­ly, my broth­er sent me a brief video clip of the late Ser­vant of God, Arch­bish­op Gor­don An­tho­ny Pan­tin, cel­e­brat­ing the Eu­charist at my home in Lon­don with con­cel­e­brants Bish­op Syd­ney Charles and Fr Vin­cent Comp­ton. They have all de­part­ed this life.

Those gath­ered in­clud­ed late for­mer T&T pres­i­dent Sir El­lis Em­manuel In­no­cent Clarke TC GCMG, his daugh­ter, Mar­garet-Ann Fisken, my fam­i­ly, and mem­bers of Car­di­nal Basil Hume’s Com­mit­tee for the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (C5). The Car­di­nal was the chair, and I was his vice chair.

Arch­bish­op Pan­tin re­mind­ed us that we do not jour­ney alone; that God loved us first, and He ex­pects us to love, not on­ly Him, but every­one else, par­tic­u­lar­ly the poor and vul­ner­a­ble. In the midst of his homi­ly, he told a few jokes, but each joke was un­der­pinned by se­ri­ous mes­sages as to how we should live our lives.

Some priests and bish­ops had vis­it­ed my par­ents’ home in Chiswick be­fore, but this was the first time that Arch­bish­op Pan­tin vis­it­ed my home. I re­mem­ber al­so tak­ing him to an event at our High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don.

Gor­don An­tho­ny Pan­tin was born in Port-of-Spain on Au­gust 27, 1929, the sec­ond son of Ju­lian An­drew Pan­tin, a busi­ness ex­ec­u­tive, and his wife, Agnes, nee Maze­ley. I mi­grat­ed with my fam­i­ly to the UK in June 1967. He was elect­ed Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain on No­vem­ber 29, 1967, and was in­stalled as the 8th Arch­bish­op and the first lo­cal Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain on March 19, 1968, the Feast of St Joseph.

Al­though I was not present at his in­stal­la­tion, I made it a point to al­ways arrange a meet­ing with him or speak with him via tele­phone when­ev­er I vis­it­ed T&T. He died at Arch­bish­op’s House of acute heart fail­ure at age 70 on March 12, 2000.

Many of you may be aware that there is an on­go­ing cause for the be­at­i­fi­ca­tion of Arch­bish­op Pan­tin. In 2013 the Holy See gave per­mis­sion for the open­ing of the Dioce­san In­quiry for the cause of be­at­i­fi­ca­tion. Mem­bers of the Dioce­san Tri­bunal that has been es­tab­lished in our Arch­dio­cese to in­ves­ti­gate and gath­er ev­i­dence con­tin­ue to work dili­gent­ly.

Ev­i­dence col­lect­ed will be sent to The Con­gre­ga­tion for the Caus­es of Saints, Rome, for re­view, and a re­port/pos­i­to will ul­ti­mate­ly be pre­sent­ed to Pope Fran­cis. The late arch­bish­op cur­rent­ly has the ti­tle “Ser­vant of God.”

The jour­ney to be­at­i­fi­ca­tion and canon­i­sa­tion is lengthy. Arch­bish­op Pan­tin was tru­ly a man who lived a holy life. He de­cid­ed to en­ter the priest­hood at age 17 and was or­dained a priest on Ju­ly 3, 1955. In­ter alia, he was an ed­u­ca­tor at both St Mary’s Col­lege and Fa­ti­ma Col­lege. He was a pro­lif­ic writer. Do you re­mem­ber his ‘Ask Me An­oth­er’ ar­ti­cles?

Much has been writ­ten and said about the life and work of this hum­ble Ser­vant Leader, for ex­am­ple, “If you want to know what the love of God looks like, let me see how you are lov­ing your neigh­bour, and Arch­bish­op Pan­tin made this text his life. One of the things we know about him is he had a heart for the poor” (Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don). 

“He spoke out pub­licly when he had to, for ex­am­ple, in 1970 dur­ing the Black Pow­er Move­ment, when ten­sions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go were high and there were calls for se­ces­sion, and dur­ing the at­tempt­ed coup of 1990 ... By his courage he pro­vid­ed hope for the church and for the na­tion” (Fr Mar­tin Sir­ju). 

“He chal­lenged and en­gaged na­tion­al lead­ers in the Gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, and unions. He was afraid of no one and al­ways de­mand­ed no­bil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty from the high­est to the or­di­nary (Ms­gr Chris­t­ian Pereira). 

“He was in­stru­men­tal in form­ing the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion and took an ac­tive role in that group. He al­so took an ac­tive role in the ac­tiv­i­ties of the An­tilles Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ence.” (Fa­ti­ma Old Boys As­so­ci­a­tion).

We are all called to be saints. Let us em­u­late this beloved Ser­vant of God, Arch­bish­op Pan­tin, whom we pray will some­day be num­bered among the canon­ised saints.