Archbishop Pantin -A Jubilee Man

By Fr Martin Sirju

Cathedral administrator

As the feast of the Lateran Basilica approaches on November 9, the late Archbishop Anthony Pantin, called ‘the Father of the nation’ by the people at the time of his death, runs through my mind.

This year the Cathedral celebrates its 173rd anniversary of its dedication. It was dedicated on February 23, 1851. Since the anniversary of the dedication invariably falls in Lent, Archbishop Pantin moved the anniversary to the feast of the Lateran Basilica.

The coming Jubilee Year is a good time to remember Archbishop Pantin. The Jubilee Bull—Hope Does Not Disappoint – invites us to become “pilgrims of hope” for Jubilee Year 2025.

He was a cheerful figure—full of laughter, jokes, smiles, affirming people even when the job was not well done—speaking out publicly when he had to, for example, in 1970 during the Black Power Movement, when tensions between Trinidad and Tobago were high and there were calls for secession, and during the attempted coup of 1990, are among the more memorable ones. By his courage he provided hope for the Church and for the nation.

Hope, we should know, is not all smiley-smiley, more dark than light, like a light shining in the dark that the darkness did not overpower. He had his dark moments, and once said to me as a young priest, almost in passing, to my astonishment: “The Archbishop of Port of Spain must be the loneliest man in the world.” I still don’t know what he was referring to but can only surmise.

It reminds me of Mother Teresa of Kolkata who was always seen as a cheerful figure. The world did not know until her death of her many years of spiritual dryness and darkness to which she once referred as “my little darkness”, as if becoming used to it.

One cannot be rooted in hope without being lost in the dark, groping, rescued only by faith. Good Pope John XXIII also spoke of “inner conflict and anguish of soul” which few knew of despite his hilarious personality.

Archbishop Pantin did not shepherd his people in a time of migration, but he was a man close to the periphery, with a vast array of vagrant friends and ex-prisoners.

In fact, the picture that epitomises him most is listening to a vagrant on the Brian Lara Promenade, he holding on to his pectoral cross, and the vagrant pointing his finger at him as if demanding that he listen to what he had to say.

The former priest, Fr Carlos Roberts told me a story some years ago of a seminarian who was doing a stint at Archbishop’s House. A homeless person came to see the Archbishop in his office at Archbishop’s House but he left the room with a very foul smell.

The seminarian proceeded to spray the room with an air freshener which incensed Archbishop Pantin who asked: “What would the man think if he forgot something and came back in the room for it? Never do that again.”

He had a special ministry to the elderly and sick as well whom he would often ask to pray for a particular intention.

He told me he used to visit an elderly woman who was going blind. After some time, he visited her again but by then she had become blind. He commiserated with her over her loss of sight, but the hopeful soul responded: “Your Grace, doh feel sorry for me nah because it have so much stupidness going in the world today I doh want to see it.”

The recently concluded Synod in Rome, in its final document, recommends a “ministry of listening and accompaniment.” I was told that Archbishop Pantin had a wide telephone ministry and would spend hours on the phone counselling and comforting people, even with international calls. His phone was not at the service of virtual reality but at the messiness of real life.

A woman I spoke to recently told me that she was in the Cathedral for the entire night when his body lay there for paying respects and veneration. She noticed some “ladies of the night”, as she put it, who stopped at his casket, gazing at his body for a few minutes. One can only imagine in what ways he impacted them.

There are many more stories I could mention but space does not permit.

The first phase of his canonisation process is being edited to be submitted to Rome hopefully in the Jubilee Year and anticipating a generous ‘yes’ from Rome.

Part of Jubilee is remembering the “ancestors in faith” who witnessed to hope. With All Saints’ Day recently celebrated, let us remember our own local saints who give us hope in these heartless days and stir us on to find the light and joy in the midst of the dark.