Archbishop calls for compassion as parishioners revive Calvary Hill Good Friday tradition

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don is call­ing on the pub­lic to recog­nise the chal­lenges faced by them­selves and oth­ers as they strive to fol­low the ex­am­ple of Je­sus Christ.

Gor­don made the re­marks fol­low­ing the Good Fri­day Sta­tions of the Cross pro­ces­sion up Cal­vary Hill in east Port-of-Spain, which was at­tend­ed by near­ly 80 parish­ioners.

Re­flect­ing on Christ’s self­less na­ture, Gor­don not­ed that while some are in­spired to acts of com­pas­sion and gen­eros­i­ty, oth­ers re­spond with scep­ti­cism or even scorn. He drew a par­al­lel to the ridicule Christ faced dur­ing his cru­ci­fix­ion, em­pha­siz­ing the en­dur­ing rel­e­vance of the mes­sage of sac­ri­fice amid ad­ver­si­ty.

“The sta­tions of the cross on that first Good Fri­day did not have large crowds, but what they had was deep de­vo­tion,” Gor­don said. “On one side, there was Christ be­ing cru­ci­fied, and on the oth­er, jeer­ing and mock­ery. To­day, Christ is still among us—in those who feed the hun­gry, vis­it the sick and pris­on­ers, and in those who make life more dif­fi­cult for oth­ers. We must have the con­scious­ness to recog­nise Christ wher­ev­er he is—in our city, our fam­i­lies, our com­mu­ni­ties.”

Gor­don not­ed that this marked the first time in sev­er­al years the parish had con­duct­ed the sta­tions of the cross along the Cal­vary Hill route. For decades, the tra­di­tion was main­tained by just three wor­ship­pers who par­tic­i­pat­ed an­nu­al­ly since 1960.

He said re­newed in­ter­est was sparked by a mem­ber of the cler­gy who re­cent­ly took part in the pil­grim­age. “This is a start-up, and the turnout is very en­cour­ag­ing,” he said. “We will build over the next few years. Most times, these things take about three years to ful­ly es­tab­lish.”

Long-time parish­ioner Joan O’Brady, 78, ex­pressed de­light at the re­vived pro­ces­sion. She said the pil­grim­age is not on­ly spir­i­tu­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant but al­so im­por­tant to lo­cal cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty iden­ti­ty.

“Here is his­to­ry. Many peo­ple in the neigh­bour­hood, in­clud­ing young boys, came to watch and even helped clean the route. It’s a prayer­ful oc­ca­sion, but it’s al­so part of our his­to­ry. For a tra­di­tion dat­ing back to the 1800s to con­tin­ue to­day, we need to keep it alive,” O’Brady said.

The parish­ioners’ jour­ney took them from the cor­ner of Park and Char­lotte Streets to the top of Cal­vary Hill in un­der two hours. Of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) and oth­er po­lice units main­tained close over­sight.

Dur­ing the as­cent, PC Hakim Bullen of the IATF and W/Cpl Bou­caud, as­signed to the DCP’s se­cu­ri­ty de­tail, as­sist­ed in car­ry­ing the cross to the hill­top.

DCP in charge of Op­er­a­tions Suzette Mar­tin, who al­so at­tend­ed the pro­ces­sion, said ex­ten­sive prepa­ra­tions were made to en­sure safe­ty.

“All di­vi­sions where the march was re­quest­ed had of­fi­cers in­spect the route be­fore­hand. To­day, of­fi­cers ac­com­pa­nied the pro­ces­sion to en­sure it was safe,” she said. Mar­tin added that po­lice would main­tain a vis­i­ble pres­ence through­out com­mu­ni­ties dur­ing the East­er week­end to safe­guard pub­lic safe­ty.