When parish priest Fr Garfield Rochard urged parishioners during his Sunday morning homily at the Assumption Church, Maraval, not to assist one member of the flock on the church’s compound, he could hardly have bargained for the heightened discussion that has since ensued in the national community.

He believed the parishioner, witness to a recent murder, was in danger and would put the lives of those with whom he congregated in danger.

That the comments gained the publicity they have is partly due to the media but some heard in them an unfortunate Church response, even when in the society gang related slayings are on the increase and the killing of witnesses is a far too common occurrence.

Fr Rochard’s words to the Sunday morning crowd were yet another sign of the damage that crime is wreaking on the fabric of our society. In their own way, they were yet another wake-up call to our society and, in particular, to the local Church. But still, there are some difficult issues here.

A real danger is that crime and the fear of it can come to determine our Christianity. The word of God is what must determine our attitude as Christians.

In his recent encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict asks: “How did we arrive at this interpretation of the ‘salvation of the soul’ as a flight from responsibility for the whole, and how did we come to conceive the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which rejects the idea of serving others?”

Some have heard in Fr Rochard’s words a lack of care, rejection and even “ostracism”. To them his call stifled the life of this parishioner. The real life that each person seeks is not attainable by oneself.

In the encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI notes further that “this real life towards which we try to reach out again and again, is linked to a lived union with a ‘people’”. Salvation, he says, “has always been considered a ‘social’ reality”.

Christian hope

Surely, no one can doubt the risk to the Maraval community. Often followers of Christ have been asked to pay for their belief with their lives.

But no one can impose that kind of sacrifice on others. It seems a responsible move on the pastor’s part to alert the community to the seriousness of the situation in which it finds itself.

The question, therefore, seems to be: how can the Christian community be present now to this parishioner turned witness? From Fr Rochard’s comments it seems clear that attempts have been made in the past and still continue to be made through the Society of St Vincent de Paul and the Social Justice Commission to assist the parishioner. This must continue and other ways have to be found to be present to him.

The Church, the body of Christ, knows well how to be in union with its members while being away from them, to be present to them while being absent.

Here is an opportunity for a parish to be present to one parishioner in a new way – to become a sign and reminder for the whole parish community of what it means to be Catholic.

At the beginning of Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict defines Christian hope and considers how this hope defines the life of the Christian. Certainly at the root of our present problems are persons without hope whose lives have been untouched by the Gospel – by an encounter with Christ.

The Pope says: “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.”

The Church’s mission remains as urgent as ever.