Peter Espeut
EVENTS IN JAMAICA are being closely followed here in Grenada where I am this week, but I choose instead to write about another Jamaican milestone. Were this a leap year, today would be the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Jamaica (centred in Kingston) as a Roman Catholic diocese - on February 29, 1956. I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to Archbishop Burke and the local Roman Catholic community of which I am proud to be a part.
The Roman Catholic Church first came to Jamaica with Columbus in 1494; Columbus travelled with his chaplain who probably celebrated the Holy Eucharist on Jamaican soil for the first time in that year. The first resident priest was Fr. Duele OP, a Dominican friar who came with Esquivel and the first colonists in 1509, and opened the first Catholic school in Jamaica (at Seville) - for the Tainos (Arawaks); but it closed when he died in 1511.
In the following decades the Roman Catholic Church based in Santiago de la Vega (Spanish Town) became a diocese with a bishop. There was a hospital (in honour of St. John the Divine), a Dominican monastery (named after St. Dominic and dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy), a Franciscan monastery (named after San Diego and dedicated to Our Lady of Expectation), and two shrines (hermitages named after Santa Lucia and Santa Barbara). All this ended when the Puritan Roundheads captured Jamaica, and the Roman Catholic Church was turfed out after almost 150 years.
ROMAN CATHOLICISM REBORN
It was not for another 150 years (in 1793) when refugees from the revolution in St. Domingue (Haiti) began arriving in Kingston (including clergy) that the Roman Catholic faith began again to be openly practised in Jamaica.
The first Jamaican-born Roman Catholic priest was Fr. Arthur Guillaume le Mercier DuQuesnay (1808-1858), who began the first Roman Catholic high school in Jamaica (he taught in it himself), and opened the first mission station outside Kingston - at Above Rocks, St. Catherine, in 1838. There were Jamaican priests Fr. James Purcell SJ and Fr. William Desnoes SJ, and then came the first black Jamaican priest: Msgr. Gladstone Orlando Stanislaus Wilson (1906-1974) - the 4th Jamaican-born priest - who earned three doctorates and spoke 13 languages fluently. It took 100 years; it was a slow start!
After the 1907 earthquake, Holy Trinity Catholic Church at the corner of Duke Street and Sutton Street was totally destroyed; a new Holy Trinity Church was built and dedicated in 1911; it became a Cathedral 50 years ago today when Bishop John J. McEleny SJ became the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Kingston.
St. Joseph's Hospital (com-pleted in 1917) has continued to grow and expand, and today has a special place in Jamaica's health care system.
St. Michael's Seminary, founded in 1952 by Bishop McEleny, has grown to be a College of the University of the West Indies, broadening the range of courses it offers.
CONTINUED GROWTH, EXPANSION
Jamaica's 18th native priest - Samuel Emmanuel Carter SJ (1919-2002) - became her first native bishop and native archbishop. Jamaica's 25th native priest - Edgerton Roland Clarke (1929-) became Jamaica's second native bishop: the first Bishop of Montego Bay and the 3rd Archbishop of Kingston. The incumbent - Lawrence A. Burke SJ (1932-) - is Jamaica's 30th native priest and the 4th Archbishop of Kingston.
At the same time that Jamaican men have been offering themselves as priests, dozens of women have been offering themselves as Religious Sisters - nuns. The Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help - a Jamaican religious order of women affectionately called 'The Blue Sisters' - have expanded locally and have sent missionaries to St. Kitts and Atlanta.
The Missionary Brothers of the Poor founded by Jamaican priest Fr. Richard Ho Lung and based in Kingston, has branches in the Philippines, India and Haiti.
In our short history we have made a difference on the social front, having started the co-operative movement, having been involved in the establishment of the sugar workers co-operatives, in family life counselling, in agriculture, housing and com-munity development experiments, in ministry to the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the imprisoned.
Fifty years is a relatively short time, and much has been accomplished in that short time. Congratulations again, and on to the second 50 years!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon.
