No time to lose: Church and Climate Justice
July 30, 2025
Development in an age of populism
July 30, 2025
By Fr Robert Christo
Vicar for Communications
Inspired by a local editorial titled ‘Defeating crime requires transformation of the prisons,’ I couldn’t help but reflect on my own journey as a prison chaplain, after serving for about 12 years, since 2006.
I still remember the clang of prison gates, the long hours waiting on the Carrera jetty, the jangling keys of turnkeys at Death Row. The scent of bleach, ‘pail’ , and metal. The taste of rice and hope. The gritty touch of graffiti on bare concrete. And the voice of a young man echoing off cold walls: “I don’t know how I end up here, Father—I innocent we. I still remember Pantin.”
Where steelpan and sorrow dance
In Trinidad and Tobago—where our national instrument, the steelpan is born from discarded oil drums, and Carnival springs from colonised pain—our prisons, too, hold a rhythm. But it’s a rhythm out of sync: a broken beat of despair, revenge, and wasted youth. Yet the Church sees—and must see—something more.
As St Augustine said, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”
The Church’s mission is to discover and cultivate that hidden good, even in the darkest of death row cells. For centuries, she has visited the prisoner—not as a tourist of trauma, but as a bearer of truth and hope. “You are still God’s child, made in His image and likeness. Your story is far from finished.”
Prison or prep school for crime
Let’s face it: our jails are under siege. Not just by gangs, but by inertia. In 2023 alone, over 411 illegal cellphones were seized in T&T ‘s prisons. These are not just tools—they may become weapons for further crime.
A retired prisons commissioner once admitted that even prison officers were being charged with trafficking, caught between temptation and threat.
Despite TT$5.2 billion allocated to the prison system between 2016 and 2023, it still functions more like a holding pen than a healing and restorative space. Many young men enter for petty crimes and graduate with a master’s in criminality. As one inmate at Youth Transformation and Rehabilitation Centre (YTRC) said: “I went in for a small joint. I came out with war from gangs.” That’s not rehabilitation. That’s recursion.
But what if our prisons could become cenacles—upper rooms of transformation and healing? What if inmates, instead of learning the next scam, encountered the saints, the sacraments, meaningful work, and the Word of God—offered weekly by many committed ministers, Religious, and laypeople (Catholics and non-Catholics alike)?
What if the Church’s four pillars of formation—human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral—were applied not only in our formation houses but behind steel bars? What if we did an intentional review and follow through of the relevancy and effectiveness of our RC programmes in prison? This is not fantasy. It’s Catholic Social Teaching in motion.
Human formation: healing the broken mirror
Human formation means restoring the image of God in those who have forgotten it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) reminds that the dignity of the human person is rooted in creation in the image and likeness of God (1700, CCC). Pope Francis echoes this by saying that there is no just punishment that deprives a person of hope.
Inmates often endure degrading conditions. A toothbrush shared. A sheet missing. A name forgotten. Ministries can pay bail for low-risk inmates who couldn’t afford a fine, and so they do not just give release—they offered relationship. “We asked their names. We listened to their stories,” said one lay minister from Arouca. That is human formation—eye to eye, heart to heart.
Spiritual formation: finding God in the cell
“You know, I found God in the same cell I used to cuss Him in.” A former altar server, now an inmate, once told me this with tears.
Spiritual formation isn’t about religious rules. It’s about real renewal and restorative justice.
Across T&T, Mass is sometimes celebrated, rosaries are prayed, and Bibles, leaflets, daily reflections and The Catholic News are passed from hand to hand. Some inmates become spiritual leaders to their cellmates.
One artist now teaches both painting and Scripture—his brush, his confessional—even gifting some pieces to the Archbishop at our Christmas visits.
St John Chrysostom once preached that God is not ashamed to be called the God of the imprisoned. Inmates who embrace their spiritual identity find a compass in a place that once felt like chaos.
Intellectual formation: freeing the mind
Many inmates never finished school, some drop-outs. Yet once given the chance, they flourish. The Adult Literacy Tutors Association (ALTA) programmes are very effective here.
The T&T Prison Service now offers Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects. One Catholic-backed initiative saw inmates defeat university students in a national debate competition. Yes, from lockdown to podium.
St Basil believed secular learning should serve sacred ends. In today’s prisons, a book can be a key, knowledge is power.
Pastoral formation: reentry with reverence
Release day doesn’t erase a man’s past. It opens a new chapter. But where’s the support system? Reintegration needs accompaniment. Some families have moved on. Some are afraid. The Church must become a home with loving boundaries, not a wall with warnings.
Let former inmates be engaged in ministries. Let them share their testimony. Once, my parish welcomed newly released men with breakfast and coffee. Another partnered with Vision on Mission to find housing. These aren’t extras. They’re essentials. St Gregory the Great reminds us that shepherding means walking with the wounded. We are all shepherds now.
Church Fathers, Caribbean futures
The early Church ministered to prisoners, even officers. The Church ministers to guards, and fellow martyrs in chains. Saints were locked up. Bishops were tortured. Today, we carry that fire in true imitation. St Peter Claver once said we must speak to them with our hands and eyes before our lips. That means presence, not just policy and rules.
Let our senses testify
Smell the incense rising in a prison chapel, mingling with bleach and raw sweat. Taste Eucharistic bread, sacred in hands once condemned. Touch a handshake that once trembled in chains. Hear off-key ‘Amazing Grace’ in B-sharp sung in Soca rhythm. See the piercing red eyes of someone seeing hope for the first time.
A call to every Catholic
We cannot say we are pro-life and ignore life in prison. We cannot preach mercy and skip the prison gate. Let every church community adopt a prison. Let every Catholic write to or pray for the imprisoned. Let our Church proclaim: Christ has no cell He won’t enter. Will we follow as CHRISTians?
