A sacrament is a Christian act that mediates divine grace. The most common sacrament, even amongst unbelievers is marriage and is likened to Christ’s relationship to the Church. Penance or confession as it is popularly known, is not unique to the Catholic Church and is regarded as one of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ.

The law and the church

In secular society there is a distinct separation of church and state and violation of the law carries different sanctions that rarely includes total forgiveness. Confession and or admission of guilt to a religious authority do not therefore absolve the individual from prosecution. At the other extreme there is theocracy wherein the church and state are closely aligned and the Cleric has tremendous influence in matters of the law; any decision made in the resolution of disputes is final

Dayton Avenue Church of God

The sexual assault of an underage schoolgirl in a van allegedly driven by the deacon of a church brings to fore an extreme branch of Christianity known as “fanaticism”. For while the church did its part in chastising the offending deacon that was not of itself sufficient as its leaders had a legal duty to report acts of the kind to the state (police). Ignorance is no excuse under the law and in the instance the founder of this church has a retired Appeal Court judge in its midst should there be any doubt.

But from reports, Mr. Martin Wright is said to have made efforts to contact the violated schoolgirl to offer her council; for a learned Judge that is evidence enough of a fanatic.  

Good for the goose

In January 1978 warring political gangs from Central and West Kingston met at the intersections of Beeston and Oxford Streets under the watchful eyes of Police Inspector J. D. Thompson of Denham Town Station and JLP Councillor (now Mayor) Desmond McKenzie of Denham Town. Purportedly representing the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and Peoples National Party (PNP) were Cladius Massop and Aston “Buckie” Thompson respectively (pun intended), while the security forces observed the peace rally from nearby rooftops. Although both men were known gangsters, none was taken into custody neither were those associated with the peace initiative including Councillor Samuel Dreckett of Tivoli.

Since then there have been numerous private treaty with gunmen culminating in the establishment of the Peace Management Initiative (PMI) in January 2002 by the Minister of National Security, Dr. Peter Phillips. Instructively, the man chosen to head the PMI was Bishop Herro Blair and although the terms of reference is unknown to the writer, we here quote from a statement made by the Bishop at a peace march in Mountain View in March 2002 “We have had meetings with persons directly involved in violence and have encouraged them to turn themselves in”.

The head of the stream

Is the rape of a schoolgirl more heinous than murder? Politicians commenting on the action of the Dayton Avenue Church should examine and expose to the police the crimes they know of in their own constituencies. Hiding under the cloak of legalism is no different from hearing a confession; lead by example and tell all that you know to the police. Crime stop is not only the responsibility of ordinary citizens church leaders and politicians should be informants too.