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Show forth the good: Bishop on marriage, carnival

Bishop Harvey and other clergy at his July 29th Anniversary Mass, at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, St. George's.

GRENADA

Bishop Clyde Harvey of St-George’s-in-Grenada, cognisant of the same-sex marriage debate across the globe has warned dehumanising homosexuals is against the law of Christ. The bottom line, he says, is that every human being who breathes and walks has to be respected as such.

“The answer is letting people bear witness to marriage. Until we as Christians are able to hold up heterosexual relationships and say ‘This is what it ought to be about’, until you have an experience of such a deep communion with another being across the homosexuality, only then can you really say to your own children, marriage is it.”

Bishop Harvey made these comments as a guest on Grenada Broadcasting Network’s (GBN) To The Pointlive broadcast, July 23.

During the almost one-hour long interview he discussed a wide variety of topics including same-sex marriage. The conversation was shared on ‘GBN Television’ Facebook page.

Bishop Harvey commented that there were some “basic” things that are missing in same-sex marriage dialogue, a debate which he said his colleague Archbishop of Port of Spain and Apostolic Administrator of Bridgetown, Barbados Jason Gordon got into “hot water” over.

He explained that the Church recognises a value in male/female heterosexual relationships which cannot be equated with homosexual relationships.

In responding to the question of “How do you deal with that?”, the bishop suggested faithful “show forth” what is good and wholesome in what they consider to be the ideal and leave it to people to choose.

“We have to be able to say man/woman relationships are not just there by a fluke. It is there because it is something about it that is absolutely precious. What has happened is society has given up on male/female relationships and the Church is not going to convince society otherwise by saying ‘the Bible says’. That has never worked,” he said.

Speaking on Grenada’s Spice Mas celebrations (which culminated August 15), Bishop Harvey mentioned that for the Church, Carnival ought to be primarily an artform through which they express their culture.

On the other hand, he highlighted a “problem” that has developed in recent years in which the beautiful artform has digressed from one which really evoked the depths of the human spirit, to wine, jam and jab-jab.

“How do we get people to understand those depths? Does the Carnival celebration lead you into greater freedom or into a period of enslavement?” he questioned.

“There’s a bottom line for me all the time: If you have to drink rum in order to enjoy yourself, you are not enjoying yourself, you are experiencing pleasure. You are not experiencing joy, and we have to get that across to people.”

Ultimately, Bishop Harvey expressed hope that there are some aspects of Grenada’s Carnival that may still be “rescuable” in bringing back what was lost.