Churches in the Caribbean are calling for the establishment of debt relief as an instrument for emergency support and reconstruction.
Under the banner of Jubilee Caribbean, various religious denominations from around the region are urging governments in the Caribbean and the international financial institutions to act quickly on that proposal ahead of the next hurricane season which begins in June.
A Jubilee Caribbean release states that “all research points to the fact that the growing severity of hurricanes in the Caribbean is related to man-made climate change. This means that we in the Caribbean, like some other nations elsewhere in the global south, are least responsible for but most affected by climate change”.
According to the clerics and their churches behind the proposal, “the few dozen small Island States across the world, for example, have neither the size nor developmental history to have been major contributors to current climate change. Yet these small Island States are the most easily devastated by rising seas and harsher storms. Our brothers and sisters who inhabit these places are in peril, through no fault of their own”.
They are recommending a tailored Heavily Indebted Caribbean Countries Initiative, which will combine immediate relief and an efficient form of debt restructuring.
“We do not want to face the next hurricane season without a proper mechanism for relief in place” they emphasize.
The March 5 release also advises:
· Our own heads of State and Government must unite and collectively demand the creation of an efficient debt relief option ahead of the next hurricane season through all available means, including the United Nations System and the Bretton Woods Institutions.
· The IMF must use its rule-setting power to endorse a full debt moratorium once a hurricane or any other serious disaster brings destruction beyond a pre-defined level and make sure that a serious debt restructuring of all external commitments shall be possible under due consideration of our peoples’ human rights.
·The ECCB and the CDB must act as supporters of a comprehensive debt restructuring process once it is needed.
The 19 signatories include Bishop Gabriel Malzaire, Roman Catholic Bishop of Roseau.
Have you all already forgotten Jubilee 2000 when most third world debt was forgiven. How many times must our debts be forgiven? Look Venezuela just forgave Dominica’s $100 million debt! Where did that money go? To the apartment in New York? To foreign bank accounts? Where is that debt borrowed? Here is a bright idea. Why don’t we ask our Governments to live within their means and also to stop borrowing only to steal and squander, and then leave we the people to repay these debts? When corrupt governments borrow and buy apartments in rich countries, then send their wife and children to live in rich countries at our expense, why don’t we call this out? Stop borrowing so much money for squander and pleasure! Ambassador A and his wife and new baby can now leave us and go and live in the USA. What was their pay out for years of service to the PM? How much money did they make on us? We borrow and get into debt for these reasons!?
We should start by asking the Vatican for reparations for their complicity in the enslavement, exploitation and pillage of black people. I just can’t believed that on any given Sunday, we have black people dumping their hard earned money into collection so it can be sent back to Rome so they can continue to finance the emotional, spiritual and mental enslavement of our people. The shackles may have fallen off of our legs wrists and necks, but it sure seems like those shackles did not disappear. There were simple transferred to our minds. WAKE UP ALREADY!!
Double standards. I could listen to the churches if at the same time they would not collect their tithes and pay tax like everybody else. In the mean time I will listen to thei advice that God will take care of things.NextNext
These church leaders we’re on top of the mountain fasting for six months and did not know what was taking place on Earth man. I mean 2 months before the next hurricane season they opening their mouths even if their members have been in pain and at the mercy of Skerrit’ for 6 months? I guess Bishop Gabriel Malzaire, must have heard when Gloria Joseph said last week that it is too late for them to relocate villages like Colihault and Coulibistrie and since he coannot find it in him to to tell Skerrit to stop dragging his foot, he decided to talk through a Caribbean church organization. But like him who accepted corrupt and hush hush money to the tune of $500k from lord Skerrit and cannot talk against anything says, maybe many more of church leaders around the Caribbean may have done the same from their government and therefore none can talk
Why should the churches do anything meaningful when all they need to do is preach a sermon on Sunday and the flock fills their baskets with their hard earned cash?
why is Malzaire name alone you calling though? what about the evangelical churches and their “spiritual leaders” ? All are in the same boat, Malzaire included.
God needs followers who would talk less and do more. The churches are becoming irrelevant as they do very little to make a profound impact in their communities. Churches should assist in parenting classes, do charitable work for the elderly in the community, help the illiterate to read both children and adults, provide hampers to the indigent at least once per month, get their members to impart some of their skills to the young like cooking, baking, masonry, carpentry, etcetera. The offerings and the tithes collected every Sunday or Saturday should not only be used to build elegant edifices but to help the most vulnerable among us.
Are these clerics smoking dope? They want to “collectively demand the creation of an efficient debt relief option….”
Go ahead and DEMAND and see how far that gets you.
To say the small island states are the most affected is not entirely true. The fact that the US does not go begging for outside help, does not mean they do not suffer the consequences of climate change. You can cite flooding in Texas, mudslides in California, tornadoes in the Midwest as examples of extreme weather events.
That is not to say the smaller islands should not be helped, but to DEMAND is not the way to go. Nobody owes the islands anything.
One place the islands can start is to be less corrupt and spend their resources wisely. You don’t need handouts from anyone to accomplish that.
Amen. Preach it
All the free money they getting. churches should be well off and SHOULD ALWAYS work to improve the communities they are situated in. not just preach and sing every week and collect money. Put that money to improving your community, not just the church grounds.
@prophet for a profitMarch 19, 2018
I had the same thought as I was reading the article. It is time for the congregation to learn that they are simply making their pastor rich, thinking that they are obeying God’s command
In the Old Testament, the Law of the Tithe is not money. It was the tenth of the land production, whatever the products were–from the eleven tribes who got their portion of the Land of Canaan according to God’s plan
Whatever their tithe was-be it livestock, wheat, grains, oil, etcetera, it belonged to the priests of God, who was from the Tribe of Levi, whom God kept in the Temple to do the works as His priests
You damn rite
Cause their prayers ain’t working, their hearts unclean