Archbishop Gordon: Make sacrificial choice, get vaccinated

THE CATHOLIC Archbishop, Rev Charles Jason Gordon, has made another desperate plea to the nation to get vaccinated.

After delivering the virtual homily on Sunday at the Living Water Community Chapel, 109 Frederick Street, Port of Spain, Gordon returned to the altar to send a strong message to the nation.

He said, “If we’re going to save this beautiful nation of ours and if we’re going to live in some form of peace and harmony, then vaccination is one of the ways that we have to go for the sake of the common good, for the sake of the good of all.

“Because as long as huge pockets of the country are not being vaccinated. The schools are going to be closed again, the businesses are going to be closed again, churches are going to remain closed and social life as we know it is going to remain what it is right now.”

Gordon said the public must stand together to save the future of children and the economy of Trinidad and Tobago.

“Let’s not amplify the minuscule risk while not looking at the major pandemic that is facing us. I am begging you, please reconsider.”

In a second public plea, Gordon called on the public to ignore misinformation from unreliable sources.

“There’s a lot of spurious information that is flying around that is stopping people from being vaccinated. I know it’s a matter of conscience but we must have an informed conscience. And to have an informed conscience, I’m begging you to think with the church.

“That kind of thinking is not theological thinking that’s magical thinking. And it has to do with a misunderstanding of our tradition. Our tradition is that you don’t put God to the test.

“There’s a difference between faith and stupidity. There’s a big, big difference.”

He asked the public to be cautious in the decisions they made during the pandemic.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t like how we live right now. I meet too many people on the fringe of an economic collapse in their personal and family life to think that what we are doing now is good. It is not good, it is terrible.”

Gordon believes the lack of accurate information in circulation along with TT culture and the resistance to the science behind the vaccine is what was causing the current high vaccine hesitancy rate.

“For the sake of the whole nation and preserving what we have as an independent Trinidad and Tobago, we have to make the hard choices. The choice to be vaccinated.”

He advised religious leaders not to deter their followers away from getting vaccinated.

“Instead, help them understand the importance of getting vaccinated and the critical part each person plays in the fight against the virus.

“We are now at a crossroads in our nation. If enough of us are not being vaccinated, the economy will never open sufficiently to stop the people who are now in poverty to come back out of poverty and back into meaningful work.

“The second issue is that we’re going to have a generation of children who would have been in and out, in and out of school. We could stop that, we could stop it if we made the sacrificial choice to be vaccinated.” (Newsday)