Thwaites vs the Archbishop

Published in the Jamaica Gleaner: Sunday | July 29, 2007

I am sympathetic to Thwaites personally and I like him enormously, but I don't think we can too easily dismiss the concerns of both Archbishop Burke and Deacon Espeut. We do have a serious problem with our political system and our political culture.

Roman Catholic deacon Ronnie Thwaites has already become the first casualty of the 2007 General Election, as his archbishop has given him the cruel and gut-wrenching choice between his preaching and his politics. Ronnie has decided not to change course with the latter.

It has been a particularly sad and distressing week for Thwaites, a devout Roman Catholic and ardent social activist with quarter-century of ministry within the church. Archbishop Lawrence Burke wrote to him over a week ago to inform him that he would be banned from preaching in Roman Catholic pulpits if he went ahead and became nominated as a candidate in the upcoming election. Thwaites is the People's National Party candidate in the tough inner-city constituency of Central Kingston, seen by some as a garrison constituency, a designation Thwaites resents.

In a report in The Sunday Gleaner last week, Archbishop Burke is quoted as saying that his decision to remove Thwaites from the pulpit if he runs in the upcoming election was for "the unity of the church". Said Burke, according to the report: "Someone should not come in the church and feel that someone who is a partisan politician is preaching to them. Everyone should feel comfortable in the church .... We have to keep clear the roles of someone who is ministering in a church and political persons. In Jamaica the type of politics that we have is so divisive and this does not help the unity of the church".

Comment on the issue

While not even the enterprising journalist Cliff Hughes has been able to get a Roman Catholic priest to comment on the issue, the usually sharp-tongued and cantankerous Roman Catholic Deacon Peter Espeut did not play the diplomat with Thwaites in his column in The Gleaner on Wednesday.

Without mentioning Thwaites by name or even the issue, Espeut, who has been sharply critical of the PNP (as he has been of the Jamaica Labour Party), says bitingly, "In Jamaica to be a member of the People's National Party or the Jamaica Labour Party means to either associate with political thugs or to associate with people who employ political thugs."

Echoing a widely held but damning view of politicians in Jamaica, Espeut says to be a politician in Jamaica "means that violence may be done to others in your name, even though you may not have ordered it or don't even know about it".

The column, a trenchant defence of his archbishop's stand in banning Thwaites, admits that under normal conditions there would be no objection to a deacon's seeking elected office "and church law allows it". But in Jamaica things are not normal. To run for a party means "to join a political tribe, to take a side in a deeply scarred and polarised society", and "this would be a betrayal of the church's prophetic role". Not even an ounce of sympathy anywhere for Thwaites' position.

Espeut follows closely the line of Archbishop Burke who told The Sunday Gleaner that "there is a perception that politicians are involved with gunmen and so forth". Though Espeut would be repulsed by the comparison, his position and that of his archbishop sounds strikingly similar to that of some fundamentalist pietists like the Jehovah's Witnesses who believe that politics is so irredeemably evil and corrupt that Christians should keep away from it.

Of course, Espeut and the archbishop are not saying Christians should not vote or that lay people should not be involved in politics. Though if Espeut is really consistent with his a argumentation, not only should clergy stay out of active politics but all Christians, for surely he cannot be saying it is okay for lay people to be in bed with political thugs, gunmen and the corrupt but not the clergy?

Espeut says that while it is laudable to "wish to change our corrupt political system, it is more likely that we will be changed and corrupted by the corrupt system we have; and the church will be the loser in the end". This sounds like something straight out of the Watchtower magazine, for not even most fundamentalist Christians now take that position - not even in Jamaica. Many Pentecostals, Apostolic, Church of God, Adventists, etc., believe that Christians can have a positive impact on even a corrupt system through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Political terrorists

Former Archbishop Egerton Clarke allowed Thwaites to contest the 2002 election for the PNP in that very same constituency known for producing gunmen and political thugs. (I am not stereotyping. The majority are decent people, but since the late 1960s to 1970s that area has produced some fearsome political terrorists.)

I am sympathetic to Thwaites personally and I like him enormously, but I don't think we can too easily dismiss the concerns of both Archbishop Burke and Deacon Espeut. We do have a serious problem with our political system and our political culture. We are a deeply partisan and tribalistic society.

A person's running for one party in this kind of society is potentially divisive to a congregation. I have been saying that we don't really have a society that is grounded in respect for pluralism and contending ideas.

What normal, pluralistic societies tolerate and accommodate is resisted by us. Even a careful pastor or priest who is actively campaigning for a party is likely to be perceived as biased, no matter what his sermon topic is.

I can understand the concerns of the archbishop. And in a sense, I want to say that some of us really ought to send a message to the politicians in the two parties that we are really disgusted with their legacy of donmanship, extortion, murder, garrisonisation, corruption, victimisation and tribalism.

Now I am not saying this is all their legacy is. The politicians in both parties have done much goodfor Jamaica. But there is no denying the seedy, nasty side of politics....what Golding used to describe as "dutty politics". We ought to send a message to them that we actually despise some of what they have been up to. Taking this stand and showing the politicians that we think their carryings-on are so dirtyand filthy that we don't want our church leaders to be a part of that might be one such signal which they can't fail to understand. (Though knowing how narrow-minded many of them are, they will probably just say this signal is really disguised support for "the other party.")

But shouldn't Christians, under the power of the Holy Spirit, seek to carry out the church's redemptive role in society now? Isn't that Incarnational theology? Catholic theology not allows but demands social and political activism - though Archbishop and Espeut would say not necessarily of a party political variety. Our leading newsman Cliff Hughes has been misunderstanding this story all week, quoting examples of activist bishops in the Philippines and Latin America as reasons why Burke's action is bewildering. Cliff doesn't understand the religion beat.

These bishops who campaigned against unjust governments and policies did not join political parties, but used their powerful ecclesiastical positions to tear down the walls of corruption. (You can be involved in political activism without joining parties, Cliff.) When some priests joined the Sandinistas, Pope John Paul condemned the move and took action against them. The Jamaican Archbishop's position is not inconsistent with Catholic canon law banning bishops and priests from running for political office. (Deacons are not forbidden but may be so advised by their bishops)

What Burke has done is to exercise a discretion in saying that in our context deacons should not run. He is not, therefore, egregiously wrong.

Balanced commentator

But in Thwaites' case the decision is most unfortunate. As someone who has followed Thwaites' journalistic career since the 1970s when he was on Public Eye on the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation, to being a listener to his appropriately titled Independent Talk, I can say that I know of no fairer and more balanced and impartial commentator in the media.

You could never believe that Thwaites is PNP supporter, let alone a candidate, from listening tohim on the air. It's simply amazing this man's sense of fairness and dispassionate analysis. Thwaites regularly criticises Government policy, and trounces the PNP over errors of both commission and omission. He is one of the most skilled interviewers in the Jamaican media, and I guarantee you that not one of those selected for the upcoming debates would ask more substantial and harder questions of Government representatives than Ronnie Thwaites.

Fairness and impartiality

If ever there were a man who could keep partisan politics out of the pulpit, it is Ronnie Thwaites. He is fairness and impartiality personified. Not to mention his incisive intellect and sophistication. It is sad that someone who loves his church as deeply is forced to make this most agonising choice.

But the Archbishop can't make policy based on personality and individual cases. Allowing Thwaites to "run with it" because of his known and amply demonstrated non-partisanship, impartiality and fairness-well-attested to by even Labourites....while clamping down on others who are more likely to be partisan in the pulpit would make the Archbishop vulnerable to the charge of inconsistency and bias.

The Archbishop has made a judgment call. He might be wrong. But the issues he has raised are real and relevant. The ultimate culprit is our decadent political system which does have the features the Archbishop has identified.

But then Thwaites would say that is precisely why good men need to enter the politics and clean it up. Good argument...so the debate continues, though, sadly, not with Thwaites in the pulpit.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com