Migration, Legality, Justice. The challenges facing the Church in Trinidad and Tobago

Meeting with the Archbishop of Port of Spain

When one thinks of the migratory flows crossing the Americas, the overland route comes to mind first of all, the one that crosses Colombia, Mexico, Central America. Indeed, it is the one travelled by the largest number of migrants. Rarely do we think of the sea routes, those that cross the Caribbean Sea, whose coasts are known as international tourist destinations and less as a landing place for migrants from different countries of the world. A reality of significant numbers, to be sure, that looms over the humanitarian crisis.

This is a snapshot of the migration phenomenon affecting the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, about 10 km off the coast of Venezuela. It is a relatively small territory, measuring a total of about 5,000 square kilometres, but one that receives constant flows of people fleeing poverty, wars and civil conflicts.

Here, the Catholic Church has been working for decades to provide welcome and support to migrants, who come in their thousands from Venezuela, but also from Haiti and Africa.

‘When arrivals increased significantly, we asked all the Catholic parishes to activate a specific service dedicated to migrants,’ says Mons. Charles Jason Gordon, Archbishop of Port of Spain, in the Caribbean state of Trinidad and Tobago, in a meeting at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. ‘About twenty of them,’ he explained, ’have started initiatives to ensure housing, food, assistance and schooling for the children'.

These initiatives were not only dictated by the emergency, but were conceived in a broader perspective, aimed at the inclusion and promotion of the person in its multiple dimensions.

‘The Church has responded in an integral manner to the migration challenge,’ emphasises Mons. Gordon, ’going so far as to involve the migrants themselves as an active part of the initiatives promoted, so that they are not only recipients of help but agents themselves of welcome and support’.

‘Another challenge we have faced,’ he continues, “is that of the education of the children of migrants. It has been a long process, due to laws and bureaucracy, but it has allowed us to bring a good number of children of migrants into Catholic schools’.

Migration is just one of the challenges facing the Church in Trinidad and Tobago. No less challenging is that of crime, which is a real scourge for the country, with a worrying number of young people involved in violence. ‘The gangs in Trinidad and Tobago,’ reports the Archbishop of Port of Spain, ‘find their livelihood in the proceeds of drug, arms and human trafficking. And this money corrupts officials and some state apparatuses, making it more difficult to obtain justice within the country'.

In order to tackle the spread of violence and corruption, the Church in the country is working to promote dialogue with the most diverse social actors, with the aim of identifying paths and solutions that come from below, hopefully more effective.

A special commitment is devoted to the issue of prisons, which in the country are not designed as places of rehabilitation and reintegration. Here, the Catholic Church works to foster a cultural change that promotes the concept of restorative justice, and on this basis reshapes detention and re-education paths. Among prisoners, the Church works to promote their dignity and recovery, encouraging the expression of skills and talents to be put to good use for the community.

‘One of the things we did recently was to organise an art exhibition, because in one of our prisons there were several artists, who learned art in prison and taught each other,’ says Mons. Gordon. ‘We set up the exhibition in my home and at the Archbishop's Curia,' he continues, ’inviting the President of the country, diplomats, officials and the business community, with the intention of highlighting first and foremost the human dimension of the imprisoned person. We also invited the artist himself, who was able to visit the exhibition and stay for a few days. To date, five of these artists have been granted early release from prison and the Church has provided them with a studio where they can exercise their talents’.

In the face of the many challenges that the Church of Trinidad and Tobago is called upon to face, the Archbishop of Port of Spain describes the support offered by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development as invaluable, with reference both to the mutual solidarity that offers each one opportunities for growth, and to the availability of a comparison that highlights good practices borrowed from the experience of the Church in other areas of the world, aimed at promoting human development in all its dimensions.

23 December 2024

local churches

migrants

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migrations

26 May 2023