Anglican priest Canon Wayne Isaacs has appealed for temperance in response to the Campus Trendz fire and loss of life.
In a sermon to his congregation at St Paul’s Anglican Church on Bay Street on Sunday, Isaacs said the death penalty was not the solution to the “heinous crime”.
“Calls for lynching and other extreme forms of punishment will make a bad situation worse. We can understand the emotional reaction of persons to the crime, but we must remain rational and be charitable,” he cautioned.
He added: “We are angry with the persons who carried out the crime. We are disgusted with their senseless actions. We want them to feel the full weight of the law, but we cannot write them off.”
Instead, Isaacs said the Tudor Street incident was an indication that the society had lost its moral and spiritual base, a problem that was manifesting itself in all kinds of deviant behaviour.
The Anglican priest complained there was too much lawlessness in the society, “and people are getting away with it”.
No time for blame
He said it was not a time for blame, but a time for action, and called for a national gathering of religious groups, schools, Government, trade unions, the private sector, and non-governmental organisations to pool resources “so that we can stop the slide”.
“The perpetrators of this crime are products of our society. Somewhere along the line we have failed in the discipline of our citizens . . . . We have allowed it to slide to the point where it has now become a serious threat to our stability and internal security,” the Anglican priest complained.
“The present situation in our nation calls for a return to some of the basic values and traditions that have served us well in the past,” Isaacs said. (GC)
