New Archbishop says: List, forgive your enemies

Make a list of your enemies and then forgive them, urged new RC Archbishop of Port of Spain, the Most Rev Charles Jason Gordon, in his New Year’s message, Taking the Path to Peace.

“Make a list of people against whom you hold resentment or anger and decide to forgive them,” he said. “I know this is very challenging. But I also know until we do this work, individually and collectively, we do not have a path to peace.” He said peace cannot be enforced by guns or armies but by the efforts of us all taking certain steps.

“To work for peace is to work for development – the development of each person and every dimension of the human person. Pope Paul VI said this form of development is the vocation of the church, by which God calls the church to build a civilisation of peace.” Outlining some steps in the pilgrimage to peace, he quoted Pope John Paul II in 2002 saying, “No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness.”

After forgiveness, we must each trying to curb our own daily acts of injustice, said Gordon. “Calumny (slander) and detraction is injustice. Not working a full day is injustice, as is refusing to pay a just wage. “Stealing from the workplace is injustice. Giving or taking a bribe is injustice. Violence is injustice.”

Gordon urged all to commit to non-violence, by personally being harmless to self and others. “It comes from the belief that hurting people, animals or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome,” he said, citing Indian statesman Mohandas Gandhi. “The violence on our streets and in our homes and places of work are all interconnected. If we want peace, we need a commitment to non-violence.”

Gordon said hate speech, at home, at work, in the street or on radio stations, fuels violence in our society. “If each of us makes a commitment to non-violence, then together we bring down the level and tone of violence in our country, individually and collectively. “Look at nonviolencett.org and take the pledge: ‘Non-violence begins with me’.”