Ghetto Priest's rhetoric rallies poor in Jamaica 1 Edition

THEY call him the Ghetto Priest and he is something of a male Mother Teresa, most often seen tramping Kingston's slums in a white robe, blue sash and sandals. The fact that he has written a hit reggae single and dozens of musicals, and writes a newspaper column, gives him considerably more stre...

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Published inScotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland : Daily)
Main Author PHIL DAVISON In Kingston
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Edinburgh (UK) Scotsman Publications 24.04.1999
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Summary:THEY call him the Ghetto Priest and he is something of a male Mother Teresa, most often seen tramping Kingston's slums in a white robe, blue sash and sandals. The fact that he has written a hit reggae single and dozens of musicals, and writes a newspaper column, gives him considerably more street cred than your average clergyman. Now, Father Richard Ho Lung, a soft-spoken, white-haired 59-year- old Jamaican, is at the forefront of protests against sweeping tax and price rises that left nine people dead this week. The worst violence seen in Jamaica for 20 years has sent shivers around the struggling Caribbean nations. At an unprecedented protest meeting of Jamaican church leaders on Thursday, Fr Ho Lung, founder of the Missionaries of the Poor group, launched a fiery attack on the government's tax and price increases and what he said was the abandonment of the poor in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean. "There must be a full rollback of the price rises. I am talking right now," he told several hundred people from various religious denominations in Kingston's Liguanea park. "Now! Now! Now!" the crowd chanted as he held his microphone out towards them, pop singer-style.
ISSN:0307-5850