Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has urged the na­tion to take a deep­er look at the long jour­ney of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty, re­flect­ing on the hard­ships en­dured by its ear­ly devo­tees and the last­ing gen­er­a­tional ef­fects of such trau­ma, as re­vealed by psy­cho­log­i­cal re­search.

“This must not be swept un­der any prover­bial car­pet and must not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed,” Young said in his mes­sage for Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Day.

Young said in or­der to be­gin such aware­ness and heal­ing, as a first step he will re­quest the Na­tion­al Li­brary (Nalis) to or­gan­ise a se­ries of month­ly dis­cus­sions across the coun­try on the strug­gle and tri­umph of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er sig­nif­i­cant junc­tures in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“There is much to be learnt and high­light­ed from the strug­gles, the faith­ful con­tin­ued wor­ship and the strength of our Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist broth­ers and sis­ters, and I cel­e­brate and salute them,” he said in the state­ment.

He called on the na­tion to “in­ten­si­fy the pop­u­lar­i­sa­tion of our his­to­ry.”

Young hailed the Gov­ern­ment’s recog­ni­tion of the im­por­tance of the con­tri­bu­tions made by the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty and thus part­nered with faith lead­ers to es­tab­lish their cathe­dral, ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex and her­itage park. In 2019, Young said state land was made avail­able for the con­struc­tion of this project, and to date the Gov­ern­ment has pro­vid­ed grant fund­ing of $20 mil­lion to­wards the re­al­i­sa­tion of the project.