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JAMAICA: New Anglican Archbishop appointed

.JAMAICA: New Anglican Archbishop appointed
The new Anglican Archbishop for the West Indies Province is Howard Gregory

TRINIDAD GUARDIAN
http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/
MAY 28, 2019

The Anglican Church in the West Indies has a new head following the election of Jamaican Bishop Howard Gregory to the post of Archbishop for the Province of the West In­dies dur­ing its provin­cial synod at the Cascadia Hotel yesterday.

Archbishop Gregory previously held the posts of head of Anglican Church in Jamaica and Cayman Islands.

He succeeds Barbadian Dr. John Holder, who retired in February 2018 and has become the first Jamaican to head the Anglican Church in the Caribbean since Archbishop William Hardie vacated the post in 1949.

During a short press conference following his election, Archbishop Gregory said there were many topical issues in the Caribbean on which the church need­ed to be lend guidance.

"At the moment we are dealing with issues related to abortion, we are dealing with issues related to marijuana, we are dealing with issues related to human trafficking and as a church we certainly have to be a part of the en­gage­ment of the so­ci­ety bring in some per­spec­tives to bear on these things, not just out of emo­tion, not just po­lit­i­cal par­ti­san in any­way but to bring our the­o­log­i­cal and bib­li­cal per­spec­tive to bear on these sit­u­a­tions," said the new Arch­bish­op.

He said the positions on these is­sues, particularly with regard to marijuana and abortion needed to carefully weighed with medical perspectives.

"It certainly is an issue that is of significance, again I believe it is one of those where people line up polarities and I think there has to be some way in which we meet around some com­mon un­der­stand­ing. Which in­volves the con­tri­bu­tion of med­i­cine, which in­volves oth­er dis­ci­plines as well," said Arch­bish­op Gre­go­ry.

The newly elected Anglican Archbishop also believes that the church can­not ig­nore the situation in Venezue­lan and its po­ten­tial ef­fect on the Caribbean.

"We can't be here in Trinidad and ignore that, because I think you're experienc­ing it at this point more than anyone else. We cer­tain­ly al­ready are recog­nis­ing the hos­pi­tal­i­ty which Trinidad is en­gag­ing but there has to be a lim­it to that. But we al­so have to recog­nise that there are rea­sons why peo­ple are com­ing here and that some of the so­lu­tions that are be­ing ar­tic­u­lat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly are not ac­cept­able," he said, " I think we are mov­ing much clos­er to­wards ac­cept­ing the po­si­tion of Cari­com but we be­lieve that as church we need to say more than what Cari­com says from its par­tic­u­lar van­tage point."

The new Archbishop however gave no perspective on the role the Anglican Church will play in dealing with the humanitarian crisis.

The matter is expected to be discussed at the Synod of the Church which ends on May 3.

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