Using a calypso classic to comment on the rise in crime across the region, Bishop Gabriel Malzaire issued a pointed message on national development as Dominica celebrated its 31^st anniversary of independence on November 3.

Bishop Malzaire said in his message - which appeared in an October 30 pre-Independence supplement of Dominican weekly The Chronicle - that while the island has enjoyed “commendable areas of development as a nation”, others are wanting.

“One obvious reason is that much is done in science and technology to manipulate the physical and social world while significantly less focus is placed on the spiritual and human levels towards the formation of human character.”

The bishop of Roseau diocese then mentioned Progress, saying “It is appalling that in what was once a peaceful Caribbean, crime of every type is on the rise. This is exactly what the artist, King Austin, referred to in his 1980 calypso: The Price of Progress is High.”

Lamenting the high levels of killings in Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, St Kitts, his homeland of St Lucia, and Dominica, he said the following question needed to be asked: “What type of development are we promoting?”

“If it means the growing absence of God in the basic frame of Caribbean life; if it means the growing intolerance of people towards each other; if it means the inability of persons to resolve conflict except with the fist, trigger, cutlass or knife; if it means building a culture based on more fetes and less work; if it means introducing striptease as the new form of adult entertainment; if it means a growing incidence of the abuse of the little ones; if it means greater noise pollution in our city, villages and neighbourhoods, then I am only left to caution that our nation is in decadence and in need of rescue. The answer no doubt is in the hands of all of us.”

Bishop Malzaire, who also quoted from papal encyclicals Populorum Progressio (The Development of Peoples) and Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) as he examined the level of progress in the country, thanked all those who “help keep ablaze the hope of ultimate fulfilment through their efforts….”

“May we work together to correct our shortcomings and strive earnestly towards a better Dominica.”