FEARING for his safety in the face of demands for protection money from thugs, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kingston has temporarily withdrawn Father Howard Thompson as the priest of the St Richards church in the troubled upper section of Red Hills Road where extortion rackets are said to be rampant.

Church officials yesterday confirmed Thompson’s removal “on a temporary basis”, but could not say precisely when he would return to his congregation.

“I had to take him out of the situation,” Archbishop Edgerton Clarke said last night. “I don’t know where it will go from here.”

But later well-known Roman Catholic figure, Monsignor Richard Albert, who has himself spent two decades working in some of Kingston’s toughest communities, suggested that Father Thompson’s break from St Richards could be relatively brief.

“The young man is taking a few days break but he is resuming his responsibilities there,” Monsignor Albert said. “He remains the pastor of St Richards.”

Father Thompson himself was unavailable for comment yesterday. However, church and community sources say that demands for money from the priest started in the wake of the New Year’s violence on Park Lane and 100 Lane that left at least eight persons dead and several others injured.

St Richards Church is situated on a stretch of Red Hills Road close to the communities where the killings — believed to be linked to gang feuds, but with an undertone of political rivalry — took place.

It is also the same area where young gang members are said to extort money from businesses in exchange for their safety.

In the face of the recent upsurge of violence five businesses have left the area, but it has been suggested that in the case of one, the owner was already heading out — fed up with the demands of the extortionists.

In the case of Father Thompson, who has been priest of St Richards since August 2000, the demands began when he went on a pastoral visit to the communities that had been wracked by the latest violence and was asked by a young man for cash to help in the area.

It was not clear whether this meant that the money was to pacify the belligerents. The demands subsequently became more insistent, even threatening, Observer sources say.

The Constant Spring police yesterday confirmed that they knew of the incidents, but said that information remained sketchy.

Ironically, Father Thompson’s predecessor at St Richards, Father Howard Rochester, 40, was gunned down in Hartlands, St Catherine in October 2000, only two months after he left the church.

The issue of extortion of government agencies paying off so-called dons in inner-city community in order to get projects done has been a matter of complaint for religious leaders this week.

Not only has Archbishop Clarke condemned the practice which he said had “got out of hand”, but on Sunday Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) president, Dr Howard Gregory, hit out against the practice and those who accede to the demands.

In a sermon at the National Arena to mark the 80th anniversary of Grace, Kennedy and Company, Dr Gregory said that it was giving rise to “a demonic underground” and warned: “I believe we have not thought through the consequences of these allowances for the society, and I believe that this is a case in which in sowing the wind we shall reap the whirlwind.”