Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has condemned in the strongest terms yesterday’s attack on Fr Clyde Harvey, saying “there are limits beneath which the human form should not sink.”
Although Harvey could not be reached yesterday, Fr Harold Imamshah assured the T&T Guardian last evening that he was “unharmed and at peace.”
Parishioners insist that the bandits, who put a gun to Harvey, tied him up and then ransacked the presbytery, were “not from the area.”
One parishioner said the bandits first went “to the church and when they did not get anything, as they were walking out they saw Fr Harvey leaving the presbytery when they attacked him.”
Although he was said to be “shaken” by the incident, Harvey is reported to have still attended the seminar at Mt St Benedict, where he was due to make a presentation on the Apostolic Letter of Pope Francis dealing with Love in the Family.
In an interview with CNC3 last night, Archbishop Joseph Harris said: “Trinidad and Tobago is going through a bad patch and this experience means that the church is really beginning to share in the sufferings of the people that they serve and that is good. Not that it is a good thing that Fr Harvey was robbed, but I’m saying that sharing in the pain and suffering of the people you serve is always a good thing.”
But Prime Minister Rowley condemned the incident, saying “the attack on Father Clyde Harvey by able-bodied, gun-toting men sadly represents the worst that exists within our communities. Notwithstanding what difficulties one may be facing in life there are limits beneath which the human form should not sink.”
Unfortunately, he said there are people who have chosen criminal conduct “as a way of life and such persons, regardless of their circumstances, should be condemned in the strongest terms, as I so do now.”
He said the “miscreants have parents and I hope that somewhere in this country today there are a few parents who are hanging their heads in shame as they reflect in private as to what more they might have done to prevent any of our citizens from behaving in this despicable way.”
Laventille West MP and Public Utilities Minister Fitzgerald Hinds meanwhile said the bandits “had touched a son of God,” and he warned them that the “thousand dollars which they stole will serve no purpose, it will not bring any benefit to them.”
Facebook users also reacted angrily to the attack on the renowned priest.
“Imagine that! We reach and a priest like him who on the ground working with the same bandits, did they know he would be there? Did someone give them a tip off? Wicked! and evil but note carefully they would steal until they die, they blight themselves and their children if they don’t change their evil ways,” one user commented.
