The Tribune

IN A letter, dated February 15, 1891, to Abbot Bernard Locnikar of St John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, Fr Chrysostom Schreiner, founder of the Catholic Church in the Bahamas, reported that there were “seven sisters of Charity here, who conduct the best school on the island”.

“It numbers 150 children (coloured), and their influence in creating Catholic feeling and sentiment among the people here is also remarkable. Of the 150 children, only six or eight are Catholics at present, but I am convinced that a heavy per cent of them, will become devote Catholics,” Fr Chrysostom reported to his Abbot.

It was mainly through the schools that the anti-Catholic feeling that greeted Fr Chrysostom when he first came to the Bahamas was painfully, but slowly broken down.

On Saturday evening, the Bahamas Catholic Board of Education, under the theme “Beyond Imagination: Making it happen through Catholic Education,” celebrated the success of 17 of the hundreds of thousands of Bahamians who have gone through the system in the past 124 years and climbed to the top of their professions — lawyers, doctors, administrators, educators, captains of business, journalists, law enforcement officers, hospitality, sports, construction, religion — some embracing the Catholic faith, others not, but all making their contribution for the betterment of their country.

Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald, who is not a Catholic, in his speech at Saturday’s function was proud that his son and niece were each winners of the Primary School Students award in the Catholic school system. “So as you can see,” he remarked,“my family has faith in the Catholic system.”

In the early days, there was no one more anti-Catholic than the late Sir Etienne Dupuch, the son of the founder of this newspaper. By the age of 17, he had faked his age and gone to war, seeing action in France, Italy and Egypt. When he returned home with only a Boys Central school education and the horrors of war scarring his soul, he was faced with The Tribune — the small family newspaper, which he was expected to operate, but for which he had had no training.

He was distraught on his return to find that his younger sister was a student at a Catholic school and still more upset that Fr Chrysostom had sent a message home with the child that he wanted to meet her “soldier brother”.

Although by then he attended no church, he was raised on the Plymouth Brethren prejudice that under every priest’s long black cassock a devil’s tail was hidden.

His refusal to accept the invitation of the old priest became such an embarrassment for the child that he caved in and climbed the Priory’s stairs to meet the Devil.

“That was one of the most important meetings of my life because I quickly realised that, far from being a devil in disguise, he was the only truly unselfish person to come into my life up to this time,” Sir Etienne wrote many years later in his book “Tribune Story”.

“It was then,” he continued, “at the age of 21 that my education and training for the job I am doing began and in a strange twist of events, the Very Rev Fr Chrysostom Schriener, OSB, Catholic Apostle to the Bahamas, was the only person to come forward to help me. He gave me my education, he taught me editorial writing, and finally, I spent a year at St John’s University Minnesota, as a special student. At our first meeting this Catholic priest, the man I had shunned because I thought his religion was wicked, was asking me the most vital question of my life. What did I plan to do? By this time all my prejudices had melted under the warmth of his friendliness for, if the essence of Christianity is not friendship, then what is it? I told him of my promise to my father to carry on The Tribune and dedicate my life to the service of underprivileged Bahamians.

“Do you really want to learn?” he asked in a modulated voice without moving his eyes from my face. “I MUST learn, Father,” I told him.

“Then, my son,” he said, rising to his feet, “I will teach you.”

His lessons started immediately. The old man and the young soldier would hold lengthy discussions, the priest selecting a topic of the day and tracing its beginnings as far back in history as possible. He then traced its evolution through time, its twists and turns until it was affecting the world scene of their day. And because of understanding the tortured journey that it had taken, the priest taught him how he could predict the future with some certainty.

During his lifetime, Sir Etienne became so good at this that he was often referred to as the “voice of doom” – many people did not want to hear his predictions – he disurbed their comfort zone.

Today people get upset when we remind them of the past from which the woes that we are struggling with today got their first beginnings. However, they don’t want to hear about the past, where the seeds of our problems, took root. It is because of this denial that they do not have a clear picture of what the future holds, nor do they understand how to direct it.

We remember when as many as 50 years ago, Sir Etienne wrote about a then sleeping China that would one day challenge the world for leadership. His prediction was dismissed as crazy. But what do we see before us today — a vibrant China, a challenge for world supremacy.

His predictions for the outcome of what was sown and allowed to fester during this nation’s drug years was so bleak, that he released us from the promise that his father, Leon, had extacted from him. He felt that as a family we had suffered enough by trying to serve the Bahamian people.

However, he would never let us forget the deep debt of gratitude that we owed Fr Chrysostom and Catholic education, because without the priest and his education, The Tribune would not be where it is today.

We were taught the good, sound values of life — and the importance of honesty, fairness and integrity in all of our dealings – and for that we are thankful for a good, sound education through the Catholic education system.