When darkness feels normal: conscience, crime, and the cry for mercy and justice

By Fr Robert Christo, Vicar for Communications

A nation under a shadow
Step outside in parts of Trinidad and Tobago and you could almost smell death or its shadow—real tension in the air—like thick black smoke after a fire that never quite went out.

Sirens cut through the night; WhatsApp messages ping with breaking news during a SOE; mothers hold their children a little tighter at funeral parlours. There is a creeping sense that something deeper than crime statistics is at play. Not just violence—but a culture of death and hopelessness, even after a year of Jubilee (‘Hope never disappoints’) where evil begins to feel normal. And here is the uncomfortable truth: this darkness is not only “out there.” It seeps into homes, workplaces, and yes—even inside the Church.

The uncomfortable mirror: evil is not just ‘them’
It is easy to point at the gunman, the gang leader, the corrupt officer. But the Gospel does not allow us that comfort. Jesus says, “From within, out of the human heart, come evil thoughts…” (Mk 7:21). The early Church Fathers saw this clearly. St Augustine of Hippo once wrote that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. Not through political parties, not through neighbourhoods, not through denominations. That means the distance between the murderer and the respectable businessman is not as wide as we would like to believe. The corrupt leader and the silent enabler often drink from the same poisoned well. Even within the Church, scandal—whether abuse of minors, greed of collection money or harvest prizes, or hypocrisy from frontline ministers—becomes a stumbling block, a cracked mirror that

distorts the face of Christ. When leaders take what is not theirs, when Church ministers fail morally, when ministries quietly drift into cliques and comfort instead of mission and sacrifice, something sacred is compromised. Salt begins to lose its flavour. And people watching from the outside say, ‘If that is Church… and beloved land of the Trinity what hope do we have?’

What forms a criminal mind?
Spend time in prison as a prison chaplain for over a decade, and the question stops being abstract. It becomes flesh and blood, story and scar. What forms an “evil” mind is rarely one clean answer. It is a tangled web of inheritance, environment, wounds, influence, and free will. A child may grow up where violence is not shocking but expected, where survival itself feels like a daily negotiation. Formation may be absent, or worse, distorted. Trauma sits quietly in the soul, like an untreated infection. Bad example and unrighteous living often shout louder than good example and righteous living and somewhere along the way, free will steps in. A decision is made. A line is consciously crossed. Some speak now, even in therapeutic circles, about inherited child pain—patterns of conflict, emotional wounds, even negative stress carried from the womb.

It is deep, almost frighteningly deep. Modern insights are beginning to echo what spiritual tradition has always known: sin travels through bloodlines, structures, through families, through culture. It is not only chosen; it is often absorbed. But none of this removes responsibility. It helps us understand; it does not excuse.

The conscience: God’s quiet alarm system
Yet even in the darkest story, something refuses to die. Call it conscience.

Natural law tells us that right and wrong are not inventions of religion; they are etched into the human heart. Before doctrine, before catechism, before church there is a quiet inner voice that says, ‘This is not right … this is right.’ That young man who called me who could not sleep for days after a heinous act—that is conscience speaking. Not loudly like thunder, but persistently like a dripping tap that will not stop. Conscience, however, is not automatic. It must be formed, shaped, guided. It can be sharpened, or it can be dulled. Ignore it long enough, and it does not disappear, but it becomes buried under layers of justification and habit. St Thomas Aquinas insisted that conscience binds us to do good and avoid evil, but it must be educated. It must be formed. A poorly formed conscience can make peace with almost anything, even cruelty. That is the real danger—not just that evil is done, but that it begins to feel normal: ‘I ok’. We are not ok!

From Eden to East Port of Spain: the same story
This story did not begin with gangs or headlines. It began in the Book of Genesis, with a simple grasping of an apple. Adam and Eve reaching for what was not theirs, choosing self over God, immediacy over obedience. The root has never changed. It is the quiet insistence that I will take what I want, define my own truth, own wealth, own path, and answer to no one. Today it shows itself in more sophisticated ways. Greed dresses up as ambition. Exploitation hides behind opportunity. Violence becomes a language. Indifference becomes a shield. The spiritual disorder remains the same, even when the scenery changes.

Mercy and justice: the two hands of God And yet, the Gospel does not leave us in despair.
God is merciful. Not mildly merciful—but relentlessly so.

After the Resurrection, the disciples scattered from the truth in Jerusalem down to the road to Emmaus. They walked away, returned to old lives, went back fishing as though nothing had happened. Still, Christ came after them like He did to Adam. Mercy pursued them into their confusion and failure. But mercy is not sentimentality. It is not a free pass. There is also justice. The Church has always held that there comes a point when the time of choosing ends. After death, there is no more reshaping the heart, no more turning back in the same way. There is accountability. Divine Mercy Sunday stands like an open door in time to all, reminding us that now is the moment to respond. Now is the hour of grace. Because later, there is an afterlife, retribution, and judgement.

This is not meant to terrify, but to awaken.

A society numbing its soul
There is another layer to this crisis—quieter, but just as dangerous. A kind of spiritual dissonance settles in. In some workplaces, in some systems, greed becomes normalised: ‘Do what you have to do’, ‘That is just how things work’. Slowly, the soul splits. Sunday becomes work—one reality; Monday becomes another. Public virtue lives alongside private compromise. Over time, that division shapes habits, and habits shape character. And character, the only thing we take after death, (everything else is shell) as we say in the Caribbean, will always reveal itself when nobody watching unsupervised.

The way back: forming the heart again
If this is the diagnosis, then the remedy cannot be superficial. We need God and formation—deep, patient, consistent formation. A conscience that is taught, not assumed. A heart that is healed, not ignored. Communities that model what forms a good conscience, not just preach it. A faith that is lived, not glammed. And above all, we need mercy. God is mercy. Because if we are honest, the need is universal. The criminal needs mercy. The corrupt leader needs mercy. The wounded child needs mercy. The Church, in all its frailty, needs mercy. All need mercy. We all stand in that same line.

Final word: light still breaks through
Even in the thickest darkness, one small flame changes everything. The question is not only why the darkness feels so strong. The deeper question is whether we are willing to become light. Because Trinidad and Tobago is not only a place of headlines and horror. It is also a place of quiet holiness. A mother praying before dawn. A teacher refusing to give up on a child. A priest trying again after failure. A young man listening to his conscience and turning back in the sacrament of reconciliation returning to ‘Jerusalem’. Darkness may be loud. But grace is stubborn. And conscience—once awakened—can still lead a people back to life. I believe divine providence has it that as I write this, I read a message from ex- convict say: “I outside fadder …I chilling. Free air boi… God doh want we to give up!”