Different culture, far-flung diocese will be a challenge
New Roman Catholic bishop speaks to Miranda La Rose
Stabroek News
November 21, 2003
Bishop-elect of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Georgetown, the Right Reverend Francis Dane Alleyne's personal priority and challenge is to reach out to the diocese of 34 parishes including some 94 hinterland communities to meet and to get to know the flock and those tending the flock.
The Trinidad-born bishop-elect, previously the Abbot of the Monastery of our Lady of Exile, is due to be ordained on January 31. He is replacing Bishop Benedict Singh who has retired.
In an interview at Bishop House, Brickdam on Wednesday, Rev Alleyne said that Guyana's hinterland would be "very new to me. We have nothing like that in Trinidad. I have never been there and I'm told that 60% of the Catholic population is in the interior."
He said he is coming into a new culture and has to learn and respect what is here; learn the paradigms of the ways in which people express themselves and what they are comfortable with.
Asked how he felt about his nomination and election, Rev Alleyne said that he did not expect it. He added, "in some ways I do not really feel that I have all the qualities that I think are needed for the post of bishop."
With regard to elections for the post of Bishop, he explained, that every diocese, on a regular basis, submits names of people they think are possible holders for the appointment of bishop so that Rome would always have new names to consider.
He said he hopes "to be able to take up the responsibility. I don't know everything here. I have to grow into the culture. The church is not the bishop. It is what happens at the community level. I'm not going to make it happen but I can endorse and encourage and where I can, discern with consultation. It is not a dictatorship."
Challenges
Among the challenges he sees is learning about the church in Guyana. He has visited Guyana regularly over the last ten years and is aware of some of the things that the church is doing well and some of the things it has to struggle with and he makes comparisons with what exists in Trinidad. He said there "are some similarities. For example, the church's response to some of the social concerns, such as family life, the issue of crime and violence, HIV/AIDS, are similar. These are things for which there is enough concern or a certain level of concern."
In terms of social responsibilities, he said that faith will always lead persons to look after and be concerned about things in society especially where the human person is concerned. He noted the strong tradition of Catholic education in Guyana and Trinidad adding that in Guyana the Sisters of Mercy run a hospital. No hospitals are run by the church in Trinidad.
The church's involvement in family life, he said is to help people to understand humanity and relationships in terms of the family. In their articulation of the dynamics of what happens in a family setting that brings a person into healthy formation. Psychologists and sociologists, he said, have never been able to find substitutes for the family. In the family, he said, all kinds of important gospel qualities, such as commitment, sacrifice, trust by individual family members, have to be lived.
Abortion and
contraception
Asked about his thoughts on abortion and contraception, he said that the church has very clear ideas about these issues and his ideas are in keeping with the church's. "Not just because the church says so. It is not a brainwashing thing. The church has very clear reason why and I certainly back the church 100%." His beliefs are not meant to "to condemn or judge anyone who would act outside of the ideals," he said.
The church, he added, is "very firm on its teachings, its ideals." Marriage as far as the church is concerned is indissoluble. Abortion "is against life... it is a life issue." Birth control, he said has to do with the level and quality of relationship between two people.
Stating that not everybody is free and has reached the stage of maturity to embrace society as fully as they would like to, he said the church would have to meet people where they are and this is where the pastoral dimension of the church will always find the challenges. He said there will be persons struggling with marriages who cannot maintain the struggle and are heading towards separation; there are those who end up in situations where at that moment the only alternative they see for themselves is to terminate a pregnancy. The issue, he said, is not to judge or condemn but how to help that person move from the situation to see things in such a way that it will not be the course of action they will have to take again.
Sexual abuse
On the issue of homosexual priests abusing the flock, the bishop-elect said: "It is a delicate issue. It is an issue that is like many things which happens." When such things happen, he said, measures have to be put in place so that they do not happen again." He said it is an aberration and the aberration becomes more glaring when it involves a person who has presented himself to the people as a leader as one who has marked himself out to follow certain standards. Double standards, he said, are always deeper.
He said that sexual abuse is one of the issues the church is looking at and addressing to safeguard against it occurring in the future.
Keeping the church's members and attracting new ones, he said is not only a challenge unique to Guyana but throughout the church. The mandate of the bishop would be to look after the flock, not just numerically but "to respect the life of the church, affirm and engender it." However, he is of the impression that there is a lot of work being done locally to bring and articulate the faith, to teach and explain it to people. "Very early in the life of the church, people were attracted to the early believers because of how they lived, not because they had a programme or they had a methodology. They just lived their faith in a genuine way and that in itself was what drew others to them."
On the issue of priests and nuns marrying, the bishop-elect said: "We are human beings and human nature is designed (in such a way) that one would be attracted to the other." However, he said that choosing celibacy is a commitment "we take on as a whole package." He said it was their choice. "Nobody forces us. We chose to remain single; we chose to live in a certain way. We're not looking to fulfil ambitions, to acquire wealth or to gain material things."
One of the ways "we have described it is living as though you've already died. [Be]cause when you've died there's no wife, there's no family, there's no money, there's no anything. If you live without those things then you're living in a different dimension."
Worship
Asked about statues and worship, the bishop-elect said that the church has a beautiful and strong tradition of veneration to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, but it is not worship. "It is veneration, admiration. It is not idolatry." The same explanation, he said, goes for the saints. "Look at their life, the way they lived and the context in which they lived in different times in history and you admire them. The Catholic Church has a rich tradition of [sainthood]. People came to God through many ways from many different backgrounds, different kinds of devotion and different professions."
With regard to Mary, he said, you see in her "an attitude of faith and trust in God that you want to emulate. You admire it in her and in that admiration those very qualities can be nurtured. It is really looking at her life of faith and the ways she made it possible for Jesus to be born. Metaphorically, when we talk about being born again... it is Jesus being born in your life."
Answering the call
Asked about himself, he said that when he was a child, his father worked with an oil company so he grew up on an oil camp where housing, educational, medical, sports and recreational facilities among other amenities were provided. So he grew up thinking that was how everybody lived until he entered Presentation College in San Fernando for a sixth-form education. There he started "to see the realities... That was disturbing. There were a lot of people who hadn't the same kind of privileges that I had."
He said his family was by no means wealthy and as a student he took holiday jobs in the construction industry. After sixth-form college he entered the University of the West Indies to do engineering. "It was half-way through that I jumped ship."
He switched studies to attend the seminary which was affiliated to UWI. In 1973, he joined the St Benedictine monastery. In between seminary studies he taught at the secondary school which the monastery ran at the time. After that he took up a number of different duties in the monastery. The main one was running the farm. He said it was beautiful very spiritual and hard work. "It put me in touch with a lot of people I would not have met otherwise, the farmers, butchers, vets. There's a whole world I got into just doing agricultural, livestock farming." He gave that up when he was elected abbot eight years ago.
The Bishop Elect said it was difficult to tell his parents that he was going to discontinue his studies. "They were spending money. They realised it was a difficult decision but they told me that they were not totally surprised. Unknown to me they had apparently seen something about me which suggested to them that it was the direction I would have taken," he said. His siblings, he said, respected his choice and were very supportive. He said that had his siblings had a say they would not have recommended the life he chose for himself, but "I'm happy and they are happy for me, today." He said they are "quite thrilled" about his new post and as many as could travel will be in Guyana for his ordination.