ARCHBISHOP ANTHONY
PANTIN
By Debra
Ravello-Greaves
Express
March 14, 2000
Page 1
THREE-DAY FUNERAL
FOR ARCHBISHOP
The
Roman Catholic Church has accepted the Government's offer for
an official funeral for Archbishop Anthony Pantin.
Pantin's
funeral rites will be spread over a three-day period, beginning on Thursday
with an official service and ending with his burial on Saturday at the
Cathedral crypt.
The
Catholic Church has also accepted the proposal of acting Prime Minister Lindsay
Gillette that there be a national day of prayer.
Pantin,
70, died in his sleep on Sunday of acute heart failure. He was the third bishop to die at the
Archbishop's House at 27 Maraval Road, Queen's Park West.
The
last burial of a Roman Catholic bishop in T&T took place over 59 years
ago. Bishop John Pius Dowling also died
in his sleep in a chair at the house on June 6, 1940. Bishop Patrick Vincent Flood, who built the house, was the first
bishop to die there on May 17, 1907.
Bishop Finbar Ryan, who followed Dowling, was buried in Ireland.
Auxiliary
Bishop John Mendes has taken over responsibility of the diocese, in keeping
with Code 419 of the Code of Canon Law.
Yesterday,
Mendes, Fr. Christian Pereira, Fr. Clyde Harvey, Fr. Joseph Harris, Fr.
Garfield Rochard and Abbot Francis Alleyne of Mt St Benedict were at
Archbishop's House overseeing funeral arrangements. Some of these senior clergymen represent the College of
Consultors, which acts in emergency cases in administration of the church.
Pereira
said, "The Archbishop has contributed tremendously to the country. It is up to us to make sure that his passing
is not a loss, but that we are able to build and to integrate his contribution
into the fabric of our national life.
We will lose something if we throw it away."
The
Archbishop's body will arrive at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception,
Independence Square, on Thursday at 6 p.m. for a Pontifical Mass presided over
by the Papal Pro-Nuncio Archbishop Eugenio Sbarbaro DD. Archbishop Edgerton Clarke, president of the
Antilles Episcopal conference, will deliver the homily.
Government
officials, the diplomatic corps and representatives of religious groups are
expected to attend this service.
The
body will lie in state at the Cathedral on Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for
public viewing and services will also be held for schoolchildren.
At
10 a.m. on Saturday the church will say farewell to Pantin after the
Archdiocese of Port of Spain celebrates a Solemn Eucharist with Mendes as chief
celebrant. This will be followed by
Pantin's entombment in the Cathedral crypt below the sacristy to the
southwestern end of the altar.
A
condolence book will be opened at Archbishop's House today to Thursday from 10
a.m. to 3 p.m.
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By Anthony Milne
Express
March 14, 2000
Page 7
ARCHBISHOP TO BE
BURIED IN
CATHEDRAL CRYPT
The
entrance to the crypt under the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Independence Square
was opened yesterday morning, examined, and found to be without the water that
sometimes seeps in, according to an official at the cathedral office. Some work has been done to it since it was
last opened, the official said.
The
archbishops of Port of Spain are traditionally interred in the crypt, and
Archbishop Anthony Pantin will be too.
Yesterday,
the gates were padlocked and photographers weren't allowed in.
Just
a few people knew about the crypt before it was opened a few years ago.
It
is through the enthusiasm of Fr. Christian Pereira, cathedral administration
for the past six years, that the secret was unearthed.
Fr.
Pereira said he was "fascinated" by the crypt and had wanted for a
long time to open it.
The
Archbishop was less enthusiastic but Fr. Pereira thought it might be nice to
allow members of the faithful to visit it "so people can make a link
between the church of the past and the church of the present."
Tiles
in the sacristy floor were prised up to reveal the entrance to the subterranean
chamber.
Fr.
Pereira and workmen descended eight stone stops into a stifling, dimly lit
room, measuring ten by 15 feet.
There
they found two caskets, one of zinc and badly deteriorated, the other of lead
and still intact. The caskets are
thought to contain the remains of the fifth and sixth archbishops of Port of
Spain: Patrick Vincent Flood, in office till 1907, and John Pius Dowling, who
died in 1940.
Only
two coffins were found then, so it seems it will be necessary to break through
the walls of the crypt to find the other tombs beneath the cathedral.
Marble
plaques and busts on the walls of the cathedral near the main altar suggest
that others buried in the crypt include Port of Spain's first Roman Catholic
archbishop, Richard Patrick Smith, who held office till 1852; the second,
Vincent Spaccapietra, who held office till 1859; the third, Ferdinand English,
archbishop till 1862; the fourth, Louis Joachim Gonin, in office till 1889.
The
seventh archbishop was Count Finbar Ryan, who died in Ireland in the 1960s and
is buried there. Mgr. Anthony Pantin is
the eighth in direct succession.
Priests
and church officials others than archbishops may have been interred beneath the
cathedral as well.
Before
Port of Spain became an archdiocese, run by an archbishop, in 1851, a number of
bishops were in charge.
Those
buried in the crypt could include James Bukley, bishop till 1828; Daniel
McDonnell, bishop till 1844; Guillaume le Goff, cure till his death in 1855;
Michael Monaghan, apostolic administrator till 1855; James Etheridge, apostolic
administrator till 1861; Abbe Francois Cuenat, apostolic administrator till
1869; William O'Carroll, coadjutor till 1884; and George Vincent King,
coadjutor till 1886.
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