TWO esteemed religious leaders say that churches and their leaders should develop relationships with criminals in volatile communities to effect change in the long run.

Speaking to the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday, the religious men warned, however, that in these situations, churches ought to know when to step back.

Rt Rev Howard Gregory, Anglican Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and head of the Church in the Province of the West Indies, recalled situations in Montego Bay, St James, where thugs warned pastors and churchgoers not to be in a “hotspot” on specific days.

“When I was in Montego Bay and there was one hotspot, the criminals would tell the church people, ‘Listen, no prayer meeting this afternoon because there is going to be some disruption. So, let your members know they mustn’t go out because things are going to get out of hand.’ You have to work with that situation,” Gregory told the Sunday Observer.

“You can’t just jump in and say, ‘We are the church and we’re going to tell the police.’ You have to work with those situations if you’re going to continue in the community and exercise the ministry that is there for you to do. I have been introduced to major crime figures by priests, because some of those figures work along with the priests in the community,” he continued.

Reverend Herro Blair Jr, head of the Youth Ministries for the Full Gospel Ministerial Fellowship told the Sunday Observer, “I might have gone to the police but at the end of the day, the young man (thug) came to the pastor because he has respect for the pastor and for praying people. That is a very important situation. I don’t see it as a compromise. I see it as them making an effort to show their level of respect for that church and that pastor.”

Further, Gregory added that there are many ministries in which clergies have worked “very closely in their communities with criminal elements” in order to try and make a difference or bring peace to a community.

In his estimation, that is something good.

“But the society shouldn’t expect though, that we are going to be the one to bring in the criminals and to change the hearts of all criminals. We engage but there are limits to what we can do,” he said. “We work along, as best as possible behind the scenes, with those who are involved in law and order to help persons to move out of antisocial behaviour and at times, even to work towards the resolution of what may be criminal activity when the information is brough to our attention.”

But he said that when it comes on to things that border on involvement in criminal activities, a different approach is demanded.

“So, if I have a situation which involves a crime, I know where to go, at what level to engage the system, and to assist the person. There are actually times when I have had those experiences where a situation is brought to one’s attention either by one who is involved and saying that they want to get out and does not know how. They may say, ‘I have a gun and I want to dispose of it.’ Clergy have, in many situations, assisted in relating to the law-and-order institutions in order to facilitate that,” he told Sunday Observer.

Blair, also a former prison chaplain told the Sunday Observer that it is not just the Government that makes the difference where crime is concerned.

“It’s a partnership between the Government, the Church and the society. The Church can pray all it wants to pray, but unless there are partnerships that create counseling, create jobs, create development, knowledge, training, then it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not only about the Church praying, but also the Church getting involved in all aspects of what is taking place. The Church has to interact with the gunmen and the dons,” Blair lamented.

“It is also becoming involved in the social fabric of the community. Sadly, most churches do not think community. Most people in the Church will say let the pastor go and do this and let the pastor go and do that, but the work has to be the work of the Church in totality.”

Blair argued that religious leaders developing relationships with criminals should not be perceived as them facilitating wrongdoing.

“You are not facilitating. The fact that somebody came to you is a matter of respect. That is important. I pastor in Spanish Town, so we are dealing with the elements on a daily basis. So, the fact that you can have relationships with them goes a long way. When they come say they want prayer, that is because of the relationship and the trust,” he reasoned.

Meanwhile, pointing to murders of priests, Gregory reiterated that there is need for caution.

The nude body of Anglican Priest Larius Lewis, a rector at the St Paul’s Anglican Church in Chapelton, was found with the hands and feet bound and a plastic bag over the head in the rectory on September 25, 2020. An autopsy found that he died from suffocation.

The two men who were charged with his murder – 23-year-old Lloyd Thompson and 20-year-old Tafari Wilson – were sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday, June 24, 2021.

The men had disclosed that they had met the priest on social media, and he invited them to his house. However, when they arrived, they said there was disagreement, and a table was used to hit Lewis in his head.

In 2013, Roman Catholic Priest, Father Charles Brown was murdered. His decomposing body was found in bushes with multiple stab wounds on the Plantation Heights main road in St Andrew.

On a personal account, Blair told the Sunday Observer that he has had relationships with several criminals over the years. This, he said, had effectuated some amount of positive change in their lives.

“I’ve had [relationships with criminals] in Spanish Town… some of those guys are dead now. And being the former prison chaplain in Cayman, I’ve had in Cayman. I’ve learned that it is not hard to develop trust with them. What they’re looking for is sincerity. I have had a lot of interactions with drug dealers and stuff. It comes down to the mind of the pastor. I used to go to bars and clubs just to let people in those spaces know that God loves them… it’s the same way I would want a gunman to know that God loves him,” he said.

“Most people would say a pastor don’t belong there, but at the end of the day, I have had people whose lives have been changed and the people who trust me as a result.”

He shared an experience with one individual from Trench Town.

“He came to me at Youth for Christ, and he said to me, ‘Pastor, I am a gunman… I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I have to use this gun so that I can provide food for my daughter.’ I made a commitment to that guy for about a year or two. Every time I got drinks from Wisynco for our concerts, every time I got food from Food for the Poor, I provided something to him,” he shared, noting that years later, he saw the man working in downtown, Kingston much better off.

Further, Gregory noted that where parents have concerns about their children being caught up in dangerous companies and activities, seeking assistance from the Church is invited.

“I think that’s a good thing because it is first an acknowledgment that something is wrong, and they are not able to handle the situation. From the Church’s perspective, it is something that we have always been doing. Many of the situations would never come to the public’s attention clearly because you don’t want to expose persons,” he said, noting that people make assumptions about what the Church does without any understanding of what is involved in the interaction between representatives of the church in people’s personal lives.

Gregory said that it is not something that one can talk about because it can completely undermine the work of clergy.

“With parents who are concerned about their children, I think the clergy has a responsibility to intervene as best as possible, though these days, some may be afraid of how to get involved because of possible consequences,” he said.

“Sometimes it is just a child who is not settling down with their work, or they are not certain what’s happening with the child. I think this is something the Church can continue to do, except that you must know when the situation demands more than you can handle.”

Blair stressed that such involvement from the Church is paramount.

That gangster, that gunman sometimes grew up without a father and oftentimes without much love and care. That gangster has grown up searching for someone who will talk to my mentor him. And oftentimes, it’s not the Church who makes itself available… it’s a don. Those guys in their own ways have mentored these youngsters and the formalised gangsterism in these communities. The way to defeat that is for us to be there and to be sincere and not just say, ‘Jesus save the people.’ But to say, ‘let me show you how Jesus loves you’ by being the love of God to them.”