I am using my column this week to share with the readers of the Catholic News the text of the sermon I preached in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Sunday, October 1, for the Police Service of Trinidad and Tobago.

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“I am pleased to be with you this morning as are my colleagues from the Inter Religious Organization. On behalf of the entire IRO, I want to thank the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service for the contribution it makes to the life of the nation. I assure the Police Service of the continued prayerful support of the IRO.

As you well know, we live in a dangerous period of history. Senseless violence is everywhere. I am sure that there are many days when your families see you off to work and then pray that you will return home to them safely.

 In that context, I want to pause briefly for silent prayer for the men and women of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service who left for work to serve the nation but were killed in the line of duty.

It is hard to believe that two years have passed since I was with the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service for Inter Faith Prayer in Point Fortin. For the purpose of continuity, I want to review briefly the points I made during that Inter Faith Service.

I spoke of three important concepts:
1) The meaning of being a public figure;
2) That credibility is the foundation for public service; and
3) That any group is only as good as the people who make it up at any point in time. I then drew some conclusions and offered some recommendations based on those three concepts.

This morning I shall build on that threefold foundation as I reflect with you on the theme of the Police Service and the Values of the Social Community. The reading from the 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 considers love. It does so from the aspects of love’s intrinsic meaning and how love should relate to human behaviour.

The reading is filled with specifics to give us criteria for measuring our lives against the concept of authentic love.

Unfortunately, the word love has a different meaning on the streets than it does in the foundational documents of the religious traditions represented here this morning. While that difference of understanding about love is true, it calls us to growth in our understanding of love.

 It is absolutely clear that it is our nature to love and be loved. When that dynamic is not present, there is an imbalance in our lives and the potential for trouble becomes very real.

In my preaching and teaching to the Archdiocese, I frequently stress this pastoral fact: unless you are in love, your life is empty. Love has meaning in itself.

It has meaning in our lives. It has meaning in how we relate to other people. Love is what motivates us to become involved in things beyond ourselves. Love warns us that if we turn in on ourselves, we live very empty lives.

I want to share an incident with you that I was part of and that speaks to the connection between police service and the values of the social community. The experience accelerated by continuing education.

I was at an international meeting of religious leaders in Brazil, South America in the 1980s. It was a month-long meeting. Each day had multiple prayer services as part of the schedule.

Similar to this service, intercessions were part of the prayer. One of the intercessions at Morning Prayer stated: ‘We pray for the military and police.’

There was an immediate uproar among many of the participants! I turned to the person next to me, who was from Peru, and asked what was going on.

He informed me that in some countries in South America, the people do not see the military and the police in a positive light. That was the explanation given for the emotional reaction.

Archbishop Gilbert gives a blessing to constables in dress uniform during the Police Service's 20th Annual Inter-faith Service at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Raymond Syms photo

I found the emotional reaction thought-provoking because it was not my experience. I found it educational because it gave me insight into the perceptions of some of the people of other cultures.

Since that time, I have read a number of international surveys in which people from various countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, indicated that they had similar views. 

What are we to do with the data from the surveys? First of all, we must avoid denial and be open to analysing the data. We have to find a way to process the data.

My recommendation is to process what is alleged not in discouragement or anger, but with the persevering wisdom that eventually leads to trust. Religious leaders have to do it, governments have to do it and so do public figures. The question of course is how to do it.

You will recall that when I addressed the Police Service in 2004, I raised the issue of community building as a goal for the Police Service. In that prayer service, I complimented the Police Service for its presence to the people and its willingness to listen to the concerns and fears of the people.

I specifically mentioned the people of Biche who told me how much they appreciated the time and effort that the police service had put into dialogue with them.  Since that time, the Police Service shared an award with one of the priests of the Archdiocese for developing a new model of community policing in Gonzalez. 

As I move about through Trinidad and Tobago, and I am on the move a lot, I have noticed that people frequently gather around police officers and take obvious comfort in the presence of the police. Once again, I affirm the Police Service for moving forward in response to the important responsibility of community building. 

The question becomes – ‘How can the commitment of the Police Service to community building be strengthened and how can the goal of community building be communicated to the general public?’ The answer to that question is to be found, I believe, in the reading from Corinthians and in the values of the people as a social community.  

As you heard in the reading, the theme is love. By definition, love is that giving of self to God and others which brings meaning and unity to your life and quality to your relationships with others. I think it is important to recognise that people may do the same things but they can have very different motives.

For example, you can be in the police service for reasons of duty or the desire to get ahead or the need to exercise power or because you love the nation and the people who make up the nation and understand they must be protected. The motive for being a police officer is quite different in each case.

I want to share a short story to show the importance of doing the right things for the right reasons! I had a good friend who was a ranking police officer. I knew him well. He was good at his work and received promotion after promotion. He was assigned to some very difficult police work.

As time went by, I noticed he was slowly changing. He became tougher and tougher, more and more angry with the hard-core criminals he had to deal with. He became so tough that it cost him his relationship with his four children and eventually his relationship with his wife.

Because I could see the change in his personality, I asked him what motivated his life. He immediately said to deal with the hard-core criminals that were destroying society and forcing people to live in fear.

I then asked him what motive predominated in his life - love of the people you are trying to protect or anger at the people you are trying to protect people from? It took him a long time to answer the question, but he finally said ‘anger’.

I said ‘your motivation is wrong. You have personalised your service in such a way that you will be eventually destroyed by your own anger.’ I advised him to get professional help and to get out of police work.

The story highlights the importance of love in our lives and that doing the right things for the right reasons is not just a pious thought. Philosophically, psychologically and theologically love is what makes the difference between the winners and the losers in life.

Love is the reason why some people have joy and meaning in their lives and why others are running on empty. No matter what your gifts are if you separate them from love they will have little value.

No matter how much lip service you give to social relationships, if they are not motivated by love they will be shallow. Everything in life is temporary, except love. Love will continue into eternity.

Because police personnel are public figures, in addition to protecting the people, you have an opportunity to use your public visibility to help create not only order but the civilisation of love. 

If you allow love to be the principal motive of your lives, then these social values take root:
1) You will help people to perceive and respect their own dignity as persons even those you must arrest.
2) You will help people to understand that they are not doomed to live in violence and fear. There is reason to hope and hope frees energy. You must understand that people without hope carry within them a very dangerous chemistry. They have nothing to lose.
3) You will help people to develop a sense of trust which will in turn help develop a sense of solidarity in the nation. Is there any doubt that the nation needs a deeper sense of solidarity among its people?

Make no mistake about the nature of love. Love is not weakness. Love helps people who must be strong to have perspective as they use their strength.

Most importantly, love protects the people who must be strong from becoming so tough that they become victims of the demands of their own profession.
May God bless you and keep you safe.”