JPCW 2017 focusses on the development of peoples 

by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI 

CCSJ urges all parishes and Catholic institutions in the archdiocese to plan/attend some of the events for Justice, Peace and Community Week (JPCW) which will run from Saturday, October 21to 28. The theme for the week is A Catholic perspective on the development of peoples. The theme commemorates the 50th Anniversary of Blessed Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples) which was published in 1967. 

Inter alia, he said: “Development cannot be limited to mere economic growth. In order to be authentic, it must be complete: integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every person and of all humanity”.   

Pope Francis has said that “One major integration that has largely been lost is that of community and the individual”.  He said forms of integration we can improve are the solidarity between those who have too much and those who have nothing, and integration of the different systems: the economy, finance, labour, culture, family life, and religion. 

In next Sunday’s Catholic News you will find a Prayer Supplement which we encourage you to use during the week and beyond. Advertised last Sunday and today is the Calendar of Events and information about the launch of the week. 

Please join us at St Dominic’s Pastoral Centre Auditorium at St Finbar’s RC Church compound on Saturday, October 21 from 1.30 to 4 p.m. to listen to our Chancellor, Fr Roger Paponette and Msgr Julien Kabore, Charge d’Affaires, Apostolic Nunciature, speak on the theme. We will also be screening the documentary: Warehoused, which focuses on the plight of refugees at Dadaab, Kenya. 

On CCSJ’s Ask Why programme in September, we focused on ‘The Church’s teaching on Democracy. I share an excerpt of Michael Logie’s spoken word poem which he called in. Please note that he has sole rights. It’s a very powerful piece from a young person who is making a special plea for our Democracy to work for our Youth also. 

Source: caribbean-steel-drums.comSource: caribbean-steel-drums.com 

Each child is a steel pan 

But before they can become a pan and play the perfect tune, 

They are first an oil drum 

Empty and hallow at the insides 

With no insight on lift, just darkness in sight 

Their minds are as rich and ripe and gold mines 

If only we can harness it 

If only we’d realise that we the parents are the craftsmen 

The ones with the hammers and chalk 

To sketch neat notes onto our kids and show them the ways that they can walk 
Only so that later on in life, when they grow up, their resilience will stalk everyone 

And they will be die hard winners and not just die hard 

But it’s up to us, the craftsmen, we must, craft them, 

Into Bass, Tenors or seconds and not leave them as scrap iron to rust 

Because each child is a steel pan 

That has to moved, from being an oil drum, to being grooved 

So later on in life they won’t be a pan that’s out of tune 

Pan is the sweetest thing 

So let us not abandon our children and leave them to roam into never land 

Because the devil, he sure finds work for idle hands 

So the crime rate will go up, up, up and never land 

Then the only pan we’d be grooving is Peter Pan 

We are Trinidad and Tobago 

Land of sea and sand 

And the most majestic sounds I’ve ever heard is that of a pan band 

Sounds of upliftment 

Lets eradicate the meaning that bent criminals put behind our flag 

Red does not represent bloodshed 

White does not mean our hearts are as white as snow 

Black should not mean a funeral for another black brother 
Each child is a steel pan 

That can be carefully crafted into the perfect tenor 

That can be taught how to release their frustration on a bass pan 

So they can be the tenants of oil drums pan sticks and greasy palms 

Teach them to latch onto success like the rubber at the end of pan sticks 

So their cold heart will never become a target for ice picks 

And it’s only then, we can say we have created perfect pans 

Where boys, no longer walk the streets with their pants beneath their backsides because they have found perfect pants 

And we can all hold hands, whether red, white or black… 

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