Archbishop Joe shows his testicular fortitude - Don't mess with us Catholics.

Archbishop Joe Harris of Port of Spain has shown that he is not to be trifled with. NO! he said. And he means no. I love the fact that he is a fighter. We need that. Catholics need to have a strong religious leader who is willing to take on any comers. And absolutely, he would have the backing of the Church. Of course there will always be people who would disagree with his tactics. I am not one of them. Hooray Your Grace. You Rock.

All this comes out of a problem with the catholic primary school in the “Carenage” area. The school has been deemed by the (government) Education Ministry engineers as unsafe and so was shut down in late May. The students, teachers and principal were sent to the government Primary school.

The interesting thing is that the government primary school can hold a maximum of 240 students. The Catholic school had 124 and government school had 110. This totals 234 students. That means all the children can be accommodated. With this in mind the Minister of Education boldly states that he was not using government funds to build a new school when all the children can be accommodated in this school. I agree of course….. however, anyone would agree when put in such simple terms. The truth is that the situation is not simple.

Parents are up in arms. They don’t want to send their children to the government school. They chose to send their children to the Catholic school to get a better secular education and a good catholic education. They think that the standard of education in the government school is lower. I don’t know if it is. According to the Newsday newspaper of June 13 2012 The good Minister had the following to say:

“

I’ve taken note of what your MP Dr Rowley has said about spending the past 20 years looking for suitable land. So until such time as the (Catholic Education) Board can indicate to the Ministry of Education that it has found land for us to build you a new school, we will consider this move a permanent solution,”

“Can I take taxpayers’ money to build another school, at 50 percent or less occupation, when the Pt Cumana Government Primary School has the space to accommodate students from your (RC) school? Building a new RC primary school in Carenage is something we will have to consider for the future with the Catholic (Education) Board,”

“There must be integration of students and parents. As such, I have directed Acting Chief Education Officer, Harrilal Seecharan, and School Supervisor II for PoS and environs, Rose Bereaux, to come to the school compound this week and work with the principals and staff to ensure no more separation of students,” Gopeesingh stated.

He added that the Ministry of Education would “allocate which teacher teaches which class. We cannot have RC teachers teaching only RC students.”

The situation makes sense to me. But My Archbishop has other ideas. And damnit, I agree with him. Let us find another solution. He had this to say:

“The choice of Catholic Education is a right of members of the Catholic Church and in accordance with the legal obligations of the State, the Minister of Education we are advised, has no constitutional power to determine whether a Catholic primary school is to exist or not.”

“As a result of this development, we intend to move our teachers and children to another location with immediate effect until this situation is resolved. Please be advised that we are exploring our legal options in this matter.”

I’m with you Your Grace! Keep on Rocking in the Free World.

BAN GAY MARRAIGE

The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian Newspaper of June 10th 2012 has a very strong headline. A suprise to me really. I have copied part of the articel referred to in the headline. It was written by Cherisse Moe:

Port of Spain (Trinidad) Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Harris is calling on citizens to resist moves to accept homosexuality. He is the latest religious leader to speak out against what he described as society’s increasing acceptance of same-sex relationships. His comments come in the wake of the government’s new national gender policy, which promises to promote fairness and equality among citizens.

“We are copycats in T&T. We look at the US and what they do and want to do it too. But one of the things nobody thinks about is structure and the importance of it,” Archbishop Harris said. “If we facilitate sinful structures, which are against God’s law, we are teaching our young people that it’s okay to lead a sinful life. We must turn back to God.”

Harris was speaking yesterday during an interview with the T&T Guardian, at a family day hosted by the Catholic Archdiocese of T&T at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain. On Friday, several faith- and community-based groups opposed to the national gender policy held a press conference to address the issue. The religious groups believe the proposed gender policy seeks to redefine the term gender and will pave the way to legalise same-sex relationships and abortion.

Minister of Gender, Youth and Child Development Verna St Rose-Greaves has voiced her support for gay rights and abortion. Harris said while he is not against homosexuals, he is against the act, which he described as sinful. “Our church teaches you to love the sinner but hate the sin. The world has progressed in all sorts of ways. Men have gone to the moon. But now people have begun to think that we can do without God. That is the problem, we cannot do without God.”

Corpus Christi -Trinidad Images 2012

Thousands celebrated Mass with the Archbishop and Nuncio:


After Mass we set out in our groups. Below the Canopy carriers await the Eucharist and the flower girls who would drop petals along the road before the Eucharist in Canopy:


Several Groups posed so that I took Photos of their banners. Below is the Banner for the Legion of Mary:


Here is a group from the beautiful church of St Theresa's in Barataria.


A Beautiful Banner for the Assumption Parish.


And so the Procession Began. I was at the Head and regret not taking photos of the Canopy as it arrived for Benediction (it was in the back). However, I did not go to take photos. I went to give God praise in the Eucharist. Here is the Cross bearer:


Another wonderful thing at the head of the procession was the Flag Bearer. While there were individuals who carried the Vatican Flag and the Trinidad and Tobago Flag, this guy carried both National Flags.


Holy Name Convent and Fatima College raised their flags high:


Again the house flags of Fatima College:

John Voight on Obama and Obamacare

Its an old recording. But still very valid

Trinidad and Tobago and abortion

This morning while listening to the radio I heard about a new group talking about womens right to abortion. In Trinidad? What about the other abortion group: A.S.P.I.R.E.? Well an article on Lifesite website in 2004 mentioned the kind of people that ASPIRE are:

"ASPIRE... admitted they get money from Planned Parenthood for their work. I understand it is in the sum of about US $20,000 a month, that is more than TT$120,000,” explained Leela Ramdeen, an attorney with Lawyers for Jesus during a seminar on "Defending the Unborn” in July (2004). "These people are fighting because they are getting money, so it is worth their while to keep doing these things.”

Brian Clowes of Human Life International told LifeNews.com that he calls ASPIRE members "air-conditioned warriors.”

"The people certainly don’t want abortion in T&T,” explained Clowes. "We have had marches of thousands of people there. The pro-abortionists do not march or demonstrate, because their only supporters are the rich who do not like to get all hot and sweaty. There are no polls taken on abortion, because the power brokers know that they will be outvoted 3 or 4 to one. They do not debate us, because they know they will lose every time.”

The people who advocate for Abortion advises that:

Trinidad and Tobago, which has a population of approximately 1.3 million, has one of the top abortion rates in the world, with roughly 45 out of every 1,000 women ages 15-44 having an abortion. In the U.S., by comparison, approximately 27 women per 1,000 have an abortion.

However:

That number is likely not accurate Dr. Godfrey Rajkumar told the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, as hospitals there report voluntary and spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) simply as "abortions.”

In a Newsday article of May 2010, written by Suzanne Shephard, Suzanne talks about abortion issues:

To get as many people as possible on their pro-choice bandwagon, ASPIRE has painted a frightening picture of the number of women who have died, or have sustained severe long-term damage to their health as a result of backyard abortions. They also frequently telegraph the message that to be pro-choice is not only politically correct but an ethical, morally proper stance which will improve the lives of women and girls in Trinidad and Tobago.

But what are the facts. Well we need to refer to a place where abortion is legal - The United States of America:

It is estimated that around the world about one-fourth of the approximately 180 million pregnancies known to occur each year end in abortion and about 35 in every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 have an abortion each year.

Although IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) and their pro-choice advocates worldwide claim that legal abortions protect the health and enhance the quality of lives of women who would otherwise be saddled with unwanted children, there is a large body of evidence that the opposite is true. According to the Elliot Institute, a research group in the United States, ten percent of women in that country who undergo induced abortion suffer from immediate complications, and one-fifth of them are considered major.

Of the many potential complications associated with induced abortion, the ones considered “minor” include infections, bleeding, fevers, chronic abdominal pain, gastrointestinal disturbances, vomiting, and Rh sensitisation. The most common “major” complications are infection, excessive bleeding, embolism, ripping or perforation of the uterus, anesthesia complications, convulsions, haemorrhage, cervical injury, and endotoxic shock.

One study in the US showed that out of a series of 1,182 abortions done under closely regulated hospital conditions, 27 percent of the patients acquired post-abortion infection lasting three days or longer. In addition, while the immediate complications of abortion are usually treatable, these complications frequently lead to long-term reproductive damage of much more serious nature.

On this matter, we need to listen to people living in the US where abortion has been legal for many years. Here are the words of pro-life advocate Dr Karen Stevenson: “Abortion impacts not only the woman involved, it impacts families. Although proponents say that they want it to be safe and rare, it is quite common. It affects one in four pregnancies and almost 40 percent of women who have had an abortion have had more than one. Over 1.5 million abortions each year are performed in this country alone. It interrupts the special bond between mother and child just as it is beginning to form.”

It was only a few days ago that the minister of health called for a referendum on weather or not there should be legalized abortion in Trinidad. The joke on the matter is that abortion is legal for the extreme cases that people talk about. The other joke is that many doctors perform abortion in their office and these are still botched. Did I mention that these are doctors?

Well I am against the legalisation of abortion on demand.,.. and I am willing to make my voice heard and counted in the matter.

The Word of God gives comfort like nothing else on Earth

Missionaries of the Poor - Isaiah the Opera in Trinidad