No to gun-toting pastors, death penalty

Although major crimes are on a decline, it is still a huge concern for the country. The Sunday Gleaner asks Paul Gardener about the dynamics of reporting crime while being aware of safety issues.

He said: "The Church has a responsibility as a responsible institution in the society. The Church has a responsibility to the State. And the role that the Church plays in the society, you have to look at it. If certain information comes to me as a pastor, one of the conversations you and I would have is my responsibility with the information you are sharing with me."

"If you are sitting there and you are going to share certain information with me, one of the things you will have to know is that because of the nature of that information, I have a responsibility that if you share information with me that involves taking of life or jeopardises the life of another, I have a responsibility to disclose that information."

"So if you come to me as a pastor and you talk to me about something you have done in the past, you are confiding in me as a pastor on some particular information, so I have to make a judgement," Gardener said, the decision being whether or not to disclose it.

"You have to make a judgement on the information you are hearing. That is one of the things with priests. People come to you and make confession, and you can't have something at the door to say 'your confession will be disclosed'. People come to you for confession. They come to you to speak about what they have done. And people come to you, wanting help to get their lives right. Now if you begin to disclose that information, nobody will come to you. And so, it would defeat the purpose in how you help people to reconcile their past," he said.

Process of trust

He speaks to building relationships and a process of trust. "That is why you find so many pastors taking people in. It is out of that process of trust. You are relaying some information, this is what I will have to do. You come with me. It happens," he said.

Still, there is also the practical issue of personal safety. "You have to be careful. You are in the community. You are pastor in that community, so you have to be sensitive and sensible," Gardener said. "At the end of the day, you have to drive back to that place where you work. You can't be naive about your personal safety. That is key. Your personal safety and your family's safety. Those are real. But it is also the space that congregation occupies, and that congregation servicing the community, which is at stake."

Personal safety or not, a pastor carrying a gun is simply a no-no. "It is something I have really thought long and hard about. I think it really sets up the pastor; it conveys the wrong image of the pastor. The gun is a symbol of death. A gun is to kill. The pastor should be a symbol of life," Gardener said.

The death penalty is also analysed in the same life-giving context, Gardener arguing that there are other ways to punish, including life imprisonment.

- M.C.