In Chapter Seven of my work in progress, I tell two stories that played vital roles in shaping my young identity. These involved critical turning points within the Roman Catholic Church and the end days of European colonialism. What an interesting time to witness history in the making!

Beginning on October 11, 1962—after ninety-three years since the convocation of the First Vatican Council on December 8, 1869—between 2,000 and 2,500 Catholic cardinals, patriarchs, and bishops from all over the world, assisted by 460 theological experts, convened in Rome for the Second Vatican Council. For the first time, Protestants, Orthodox, and other non-Catholic observers were invited to assist. In attendance as observers were forty-two lay and religious men and women.

Meanwhile, in what was then British Guiana, our parents and grandparents were embroiled in the struggle for independence from Britain. Our country’s independence in May 1966 went way beyond constitutional change and self-governance. No longer socially inferior subjects of the former Mother Country, we the people also had to undergo the psychological process of “mental emancipation.” As I observed during my adolescence, the Church and State often disagreed on the means to achieve such profound changes of being and doing.

When I first drafted this chapter in 2017—yes, this project is years in the making—the MAGA administration of our 45th president held power in the White House. As I understood then, this rallying cry to “Make America Great Again” meant a return to the 1950s when the white male held power over non-white bodies and the female stayed at home to raise the family and serve her husband. I had visions of a return to life in colonial British Guiana. It meant a return, too, to my mother’s unhappy life as a stay-at-home working mother of five children and an abusive husband.

What a turn of events in the world’s richest and most powerful nation!

I imagine that this is not an easy time to be a young person in the United States. In addition to laws and regulations dictated by the Church and State, they must also contend with bullying and conspiracy theories on ubiquitous Social Media platforms. Added to that is gun violence in schools, colleges, and the public spaces where they socialize. For girls and young women, rights won by their mothers and grandmothers, through years of political activism, are being dismantled.

During my adolescent years, my steadfast faith in the teachings of the Catholic Church grounded me during those transformative years from a colonial country to a cooperative socialist republic. Moreover, as a young woman, I witnessed strong and courageous women lead the way forward. I feature three of these women in Chapters Eight to Ten.

Chapter Seven: The Making of a Christian Socialist

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Roman Catholic Church Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) brought lots of changes, big and small, to the church in Guyana. Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), the head of the Roman Catholic Church, had taken a bold step to bring the church into the modern world. We females no longer had to cover our head at church. Not happy about the change, some older female churchgoers complained that we young people were being disrespectful in the Lord’s house. I soon found it pointless to explain that church rules had changed. That the old church ruling had never applied to men didn’t bother them.

A more important change was the use of the local vernacular instead of Latin for the church’s liturgical celebrations. Out went the Roman Missal for following the celebration of Mass. What’s more, the priest now faced the congregation instead of backing us. We were to become participants rather than observers in the celebration of Mass. Even the centuries-old hymns were gradually replaced by new religious songs. Fresh air seemed to have entered our church, a freshness more welcoming for us young people.

A big deal for us in Guyana, with large populations of Hindus and Muslims, was the Vatican Council’s recognition that salvation was not only reserved for Christians. Non-Christians, like many of my school friends, even atheists and agnostics, could also be saved if they followed their consciences. Who could judge the sincerity of another person’s conscience? At least, not me.

The change that shaped the vision of my place in society was the Council’s affirmation that the Church should get more involved in social, economic, and political affairs. Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), who succeeded Pope John XXIII after his death, considered nationalism and racism as major obstacles for a more just social order. Racism was a major issue in our country and only seemed to worsen in pre- and post-independent Guyana. At the time, nationalism was a new concept for me. Following our independence from Britain in May 1966, I felt pride and joy in being Guyanese. We were no longer “subjects.” We could now forge our own identity as a nation. Guyana’s destiny was my destiny. My contribution mattered.

With the new openness in the Catholic Church came an outreach towards us youth. When our parish started a youth group for those who were thirteen to eighteen years old, my sister and I joined. The organization and management of our youth group fell to a newly ordained priest in his twenties whose good looks attracted the attention of the ladies in our parish. Poor guy! All the female attention made his stuttering much worse. A recent arrival from the Canadian Scarboro Mission, he was by far more approachable than our two older Canadian parish priests. One of them had the habit of hammering the pulpit during his sermons, intent on filling the congregation with fear of the fires of Hell.

Our youth group met once weekly at the parish hall on the ground floor of the presbytery, located adjacent to the church. Under the guidance of our young priest-in-charge, we took part in fund-raising events, held concerts, visited the sick and aged, and joined neighborhood clean-up campaigns. We also met once a month on a Saturday evening for “Games Night.” I volunteered to be part of a male-female team for planning the event. Using a book of party games borrowed from the Georgetown Public Library, I met at home with Neville, my black partner who was older than I was. The dining room where we held our discussions was adjacent to Mother’s sewing room. Unless a client was trying on an outfit, the doorway remained open. No chance of any hanky-panky.

After our third meeting, Mother declared her verdict.

“I don’t want you meeting with that boy no more,” she told me. “He fulla sweet-talk. After he get what he want, he going dump you like a used tire.”

“But, Mom, we’re just friends. Nothing more.”

My objections couldn’t penetrate her predictions of life with a young man like him. Mother wounded me with her final sentence: “Don’t think for one minute I’m going to help you raise any bastard child.”

To tell Mother that I had no intention of making her mistake would’ve only angered her.

Neville was flabbergasted when I told him we could no longer work together. “What did I do wrong?”

How could I explain my mother’s fears? He had done nothing to deserve such a condemnation of his character. He left the group soon thereafter. I was sorry to see him leave: He was a jovial person and the best dancer in our youth group.

When I became eighteen, our young priest-in-charge elected me to represent the youth on the Parish Council. Months later, the members of the council invited me to address a seminar for Catholic parents about bridging the generation gap. The members of our youth group, now numbering about twenty, gave me several areas of conflict with their parents to raise in my presentation. Usually timid as a high school student to speak out in the classroom, I was forced into the spotlight. What an unnerving experience! The more than a hundred adults filling the auditorium seemed to look at me with accusing eyes. Seated in the front row, a prominent benefactor of the Catholic Church—a successful and well-respected businessman in the Portuguese community—made me uncomfortable with his stern expression and folded arms. Bridging the generation gap would not be easy.

Long before the directives from the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church in then British Guiana, during our struggle for independence, was in constant conflict with the left-wing communist government under Cheddi Jagan (1918-1997). In 1961, when Jagan’s government took over fifty-one Christian denominational schools, built wholly or in part with public funds, Mother and Auntie Katie joined hundreds of concerned Christian parents on the public Parade Ground to protest the decision. The government’s plan to bring all Church schools under their control, became a huge thorn in the side of the Catholic Church. In Chapter Nine, I feature the portrait of Janet Jagan nee Rosenberg, Cheddi Jagan’s American-born wife, who was also engaged in our country’s political and social struggles.

In March 1963, the Catholic Bishop called on all Guianese who valued religious instruction for their children to oppose the government’s policy to banish God from the schools. Parents and children picketed outside the Parliament Building. With tensions rising across the city in the lead up to the 80-day general strike to protest the leftist government’s Labor Relations Bill, Father didn’t think it was safe for Mother and us children to be out on the streets. We watched passers-by from behind the safety of the four-foot-high concrete fence of our Queenstown home. A man rode by with a placard strapped to the handlebar of his bicycle that read: HANDS OFF OUR RELIGION. On April 30, after the general strike was declared, the churches held a torchlight procession and an all-night vigil of prayer and penance for our country in crisis.

Finally rising to power in 1964, the democratic socialist party under Forbes Burnham (1923-1985) led our country to independence in May 1966. In Chapter Eight, I feature the portrait of Winifred Gaskin, appointed as Minister of Education (1964-1968) in his government. A Methodist and son of a schoolmaster, Prime Minister Burnham assured the Catholic Church that he had no intentions of ending religious instructions in the schools. His brand of socialism was nothing like Jagan’s communist policies, he assured the religious leaders. Believing that they had averted the communist threat, the Church gave the Burnham government their full support. Great was the relief of the minority Portuguese business community!

Their relief was short-lived. Burnham’s signs of growing authoritarianism couldn’t be ignored. His democratic socialist government veered to the left. I had graduated from senior high school and was working in the private financial sector when, on February 23, 1970, he declared our nation a “cooperative republic.” The first of its kind in the British Commonwealth. While he remained Prime Minister, Burnham replaced the Governor-General, Britain’s appointed representative since our independence. In his place, the National Assembly elected a ceremonial president as our new Head of State for a five-year-term.

Guyana officially became a socialist republic. So began my transformation into a Christian socialist.

Up to that time, our four-year-old nation was independent only in terms of self-government. Our economy was still dependent upon foreign companies that exploited our natural resources and labor, and pocketed most of the profits. This was all going to change. We the people would take control over the economy with the formation of cooperatives.

“We must put economic power where it belongs,” Burnham said in his opening address to Parliament on February 23, 1970. “Be you a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, an agnostic, or what have you.” He envisioned an egalitarian society in which the “small man” would become a “real man.”

Father and his drinking buddies were content to wait and see developments. On the other hand, Mother saw no future for herself and five children in a country with an authoritarian man in power.

“I knew he was just a sweet-mouth to get our votes,” Mother told Auntie Katie, referring to Prime Minister Burnham.

I didn’t yet know what Mother was fussing about. She always had a vision of the future that was beyond comprehension of my adolescent mind. We were an independent country. Changes were inevitable and necessary. The innocence of youth!