by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
During the Year of Faith, it is imperative that we remind ourselves of the teachings of our Church with regard to key elements of a just society. “The Church’s social Magisterium constantly calls for the most classical forms of justice to be respected: commutative, distributive and legal justice. Ever greater importance has been given to social justice…” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church #201).
Our Catechism (# 2411) tells us that commutative justice “regulates exchanges between persons and between institutions in accordance with a strict respect for their rights. Commutative justice obliges strictly; it requires safeguarding property rights, paying debts, and fulfilling obligations freely contracted. Without commutative justice, no other form of justice is possible.
“One distinguishes commutative justice from legal justice which concerns what the citizen owes in fairness to the community, and from distributive justice which regulates what the community owes its citizens in proportion to their contributions and needs” (Catechism #2411).
Distributive justice is “the virtue that regulates those actions which involve the rights that an individual may claim from society. According to distributive justice, the state has three basic duties: to distribute the common burdens and privileges equitably; to make it possible for each citizen to exercise natural and acquired rights without undue hindrance; to foster mutual relations among the citizens for living together peacefully. (www.catholicreference.net).
T&T’s Constitution enshrines some of the fundamental rights of our citizens, including religious freedom. In his Eid message to the nation last year, President George Maxwell Richards reminded us that “freedom of religion is a pillar of our Constitution and it is a right enshrined—freedom of conscience and religious belief and observance—in Section 4 (h)…This is not just a paper contract but a reality which is lived out daily in the conduct of our business, personal and otherwise…
“This freedom to pursue our daily lives without prejudice because of our religion or particular sects thereof, should inspire us to be ever more resolute in defending our country against those who would seek to introduce, subtly or otherwise, elements that would take us down a path of erosion of these very rights…Let no one change or impede our pursuit of peace” (see T&T Guardian).
Catholics continue to contribute significantly to the nation’s “purse” and, in fact, since our Catholic schools comprise many students who are not Catholic, one can argue that we are promoting the common good through our schools. It is important to place the Concordat concerning Education in T&T within its historical context. Before the debate of the Maurice Report on Education in 1960 in what was then called the Legislative Council, my father, a Hindu, was asked by Dr Rudranath Capildeo, the then Leader of the Opposition, to prepare the Opposition’s case challenging the provisions contained in the Report prepared by the then Government. Pa used to write under the pseudonym “Cassandra”.
Approximately 72 hours before the debate, Pa met about five priests who were educators at St Mary’s College. They gave him relevant documents, including memoranda from some of the other denominational bodies. All the Religious Denominations were jointly objecting to the proposals contained in the Maurice Report which would have stripped Denominational Boards of Management of most of their control over their own schools and placed it into the hands of the then Government (See “Untold Tales of Politics and Politicians” by Balgobin Ramdeen and also “Endless Education: Main Currents in the Education System of Modern Trinidad” by Carl C Campbell).
Pa turned night into day, as the saying goes, to prepare the Opposition’s challenge to the proposals contained in the Report. On July 25, 1960, about one year before he himself was elected as a Member of Parliament for Caroni East, he sat for the first time in the Public Gallery in the Legislative Council to listen to the debate. Dr Capildeo had given the case Pa had prepared for the Opposition to the Member for Naparima who delivered it verbatim (see Hansard).
Subsequently, and as a consequence of the Opposition’s challenge, the Maurice Report was withdrawn and an Education Concordat was arrived at between the then Government and the various Denominations (published on Christmas Day 1960). The rest, as they say, is history.
I am made in the same mould as my Hindu father and Catholic mother and will fight tooth and nail for religious freedom. I expect each Catholic to be prepared to face any challenge to our Church’s rights as enshrined in the 1960 Concordat. Jesus would expect nothing less from us.
