The Editor Sir:

Even as the Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands mourns the brutal slaying of one of its priests, the Rev. Fr. Richard Johnson, in his rectory at St. Jude's, Stony Hill, in the late hours of Sunday night, there is occasion to reflect on where we stand as a people.

In our charge to the 136th Synod of the Church in April, we reminded the church and nation that: We live in a time which is defined by violence and murder. William Shakespeare in Hamlet (1:3) uses a memorable phrase: "Murder, most foul, strange and unnatural." The murderer is the "magna peccata." Murder is the worst possible crime because it is irreversible, but more so, it represents a presumptuous defiance of God, the Giver of life, and attempts to reverse the life-giving activity of the Creator.

What is happening now may well be described as "most foul" because it has a peculiar demonic quality of violence, malevolence, heartlessness, capriciousness and terror. It may also be considered "strange and unnatural" because it is directed against our own brothers and sisters, against innocent children, including infants whom "normal people" would want to love and protect, against vulnerable old people who would be regarded as special treasures in any civilised society. "Strange and unnatural," because it brands us as zombies without natural affection or human feeling.

Of course, Jamaica has always been a violently murderous place beginning with the ruthless extermination of the Tainos (Arawaks), the innumerable persons who perished in the Middle Passage and during the holocaust of slavery and even in the colonial period when the majority of our people were deemed expendable.

Violence is nothing new. What is new is a reversal in the roles of perpetrators and victims. In the old days, we could say it was committed against us by foreigners. Now that we are doing it to ourselves, isn't it strange? Well, it would be strange if we had ever been a united people. What is now revealing itself is the entrenched hostility between races, classes and cultures in Jamaica.

This is why I think that the story of Cain and Abel is the story of Jamaica over the past several years, especially the years inaugurated by the watershed year - 1980, when this nation crossed the Rubicon and has never been able to retreat. Cain and Abel live in Jamaica. Every detail of that dreadful story is daily re-enacted before our eyes like some primeval tragedy in a theatre of horror.

It is the story of unreasoning hatred, jealousy, envy, paranoia and betrayal of trust. Both men (Cain and Abel) offered sacrifice to God but Cain believed that God accepted Abel's offering and rejected his. How did he know that? How could he know? It is typical of people who project their own feelings of guilt or inadequacy on to others and even on to God.

God said to Cain, "... the voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground and now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." (Genesis 4:11)

Jamaica is, undoubtedly, a blessed land and we are a blessed people. Why then have we failed to actualise our full potential? Could there be a countervailing curse on the land that nullifies our blessing? The curse of innocent blood is mentioned not only in this passage, but in the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets.

I am, etc.,

ALFRED REID

Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands