Catholic Standard should resume anti-corruption crusade

Jan 06, 2014 News

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– Freddie Kissoon

Columnist and political activist Freddie Kissoon believes that the Catholic Standard should continue the fight against corruption and wrong doings even though it’s now more spiritually focused on Christianity.
The Catholic Standard is a weekly Christian paper which under the Helm of a national figure Father Andrew Morrison, during the 70’s and 80’s, did several investigative stories on the then PNC government, notably on the assassination of WPA leader Walter Rodney and the brazen daylight killing of Catholic Priest Father Darke, by thugs from the House of Israel.

But after the PPP/C’s advent to power, and after Father Morrison retired, the direction of the paper shifted towards focusing more on spirituality and the Catholic demographic.
“I think that the Catholic standard should have continued the glorious tradition of Father Morrison, but I think what happened is that the leadership of the Church changed, the leadership of the Church passed from a Guyanese who understood what happened in the 70’s and 80’s and it went to a foreigner, so the Church took a new path way of going back to spirituality” said Kissoon.
According to Kissoon, after the Burnham era was over, the Catholic Standard felt that the role it was playing was finished and more attention should be placed with the Standard as the provider of the church doctrine. However, Kissoon’s contention is that the current state of this political administration is worse than under Burnham, hence the need for the Standard to play a part since he posits that even if the Standard says it’s religiously focused, in religion the foundation is right over wrong. As such, the Catholic Standard should be going back to its former position of highlighting and transgressing those wrongs in Guyana.
“If you look at our country now you can lose your life if you only do an article on drug trafficking and pin point certain places where drug trafficking is taking place, you have to be very careful if you do an article… those people would come and kill you right next door to a police station and the police would take 24 hours before they even come to the building where you were shot,
I mean how could that not be worse than when the Catholic Standard was fighting against President Forbes Burnham… you have some of the richest men in the Caribbean using state resources; Mr. Burnham would never have tolerated that, so the Catholic Church doesn’t have a leg to stand on for them to argue that the CS should now go back to its religious foundation” said Kissoon.
Kissoon was referring to the arguments posited by the Mr. Colin Smith, the current editor of the Catholic Standard. In a previous interview, Smith stated that he is not an independent person of the church, and therefore has to follow the direction of the Church and has to answer to a board and a Chairman, who has been at the helm for about 35 years.

Kissoon feels that after serving so many years, the Chairman should make way for someone else, who can take the Standard in a new direction.
Smith had argued that “with the advent of the Stabroek News and more so the Kaieteur News, there was no real need for the Catholic Standard to do what it was doing. They (Stabroek and Kaieteur) did much better, they had a lot more resources, human and financial. The whole scenario changed, the dictatorship under Burnham didn’t exist anymore… the political situation changed completely and there was no need for the Standard, with its few resources to do what it was doing when these two other papers had come on board.”
According to Kissoon, Mr. Smith, “while he is very understanding of the role of right and wrong cannot go against church policies. The board is authoritarian enough to fire him. In life you cannot say that your colleague is dealing with sexual exploitation, let him deal with it, you have an obligation to deal with it too if you were working in the company, so the explanation that Kaieteur and Stabroek are looking at corruption can’t hold.”
Kissoon also argues that, while the second explanation of resources has some merit, the Catholic Church has entrenched itself in Guyana and could easily get the manpower for persons to volunteer and do journalistic work for the paper, or for there to be financial support from members.
Kissoon thinks “it’s just plausible excuses from turning the Catholic Standard away from the sacred path of exposing evil and wrong doings, Mr. Smith is not to be blamed for that; he is an employee of the Catholic Church that is a decision the board and the church took under the present chairman. He [Chairman] was not enamored with the paper taking that vibrant role under Father Morrison, but he deferred to Father Morrison because he was a national hero, and I think once Father Morrison retired and got sick the paper went in a different direction.”

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