KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves believes that a local “cult” will not sway many Vincentians but citizens should oppose its practices.
“I don’t know how widespread this particular cult is or these practices. But, it is in the interest of all right-thinking persons that those kinds of practices be opposed, be denounced, be criticised,” he said in response to a reporter’s question at a press conference on Tuesday.
“I am confident, though, that the people in our country would never, in any significant numbers, succumb to these kinds of strange importations, which come from some of the most extreme elements in the developed world. I don’t see that happening,” he further said.
Gonsalves, a Catholic, said it was interesting that the question was being asked during Holy Week, which, he said, is the most important week in Christian civilisation.
He noted that large crowds followed Jesus Christ when He entered Jerusalem on a donkey on what some Christians today commemorate as Palm Sunday.
“We mustn’t forget that when He and Barabbas were put before the people, the people said overwhelmingly they wanted Barabbas. Free Barabbas; that was Barabbas party that was mobilised,” Gonsalves said.
“I don’t want to be complacent and say that satanic practices are not a danger; the cult’s practices, clearly, they are and we have to oppose them. But the strength and solidity of our belief in what I have described as the most important week in Christian civilisation, I don’t see any of the cult prospering,” he said.
“People would get injured through them, some people would suffer. I urge all of them to read the Bible and particularly read the story from Palm Sunday to the Sunday which followed, which is the Resurrection,” Gonsalves said.
Many Christians around the world, including in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where the days are national holidays, will commemorate the death of Jesus Christ on Friday – Good Friday — and his resurrection on Sunday — Easter Sunday.