On his first official day after being named Coadjutor Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Trinidad and Tobago, 53 year old Reverend Father Ronald Clifford Warrick Branche was holding the weekly, half- hour, open-air service in the Sangre Grande market-place, at 6.30 a.m., on Saturday April 1, 2000.
The very simple and down-to-earth padre blessed the fruit, vegetables, market vendors and purchasers, while his wife, Heather, manned the microphone and conducted the choir. The couple have one son, Kieron, a land surveyor in Barbados.
"We have to be near the people" said the new Bishop Coadjutor, who will succeed Bishop Rawle Douglin next January. "You hear of all- inclusive fetes. I call them all-exclusive because they charge high prices so that a certain element cannot attend. My all-inclusive Ministry is about reaching out, that is why we are in the market place and care about the drug addicts. Also every Tuesday in lent we go out to a different area and hold outdoor services. The church has to be visible that's my thing, I feel that we have to do that."
And this is exactly what Father Branche plans to carry on doing out at Sangre Grande until someone else is appointed, so that he can take up residence at Hayes Court to understudy Bishop Rawle, once Archbishop Drexel Gomez and the House of Bishops of the Province of the West Indies approve his appointment as Coadjutor Bishop. Father Branche's ministry at the St James The Just parish, includes St Christopher at Valencia, St James The Just in Sangre Grande, St Mary Magdalene at Manzanilla, St John's at Biche, Church of the Epiphany in Matura and St George The Martyr in Salibya.
When Father Branche came to Sangre Grande four years ago, on March 1, 1996, he recalls: "The church was a tapia structure, it was a mess, the floor was all mashed up, there were termites in the roof." With the help of his parishioners, a loft was built for the overflow of congregtion, toilets fixed, and the church extended. The walls are now brick, there are new French windows, all accomplished by December 11, 1996, at which time Bishop Rawle rededicated the church.
The story was similar at all the churches under Father Branche's care. In Manzanilla, the church was virtually desolate. Again bathrooms were fixed, stained glass windows placed to the top and by July 1999, St Mary Magdalene was rededicated. The Valencia Church has already been close-boarded "we still have to tile the floor and add bathrooms. Notice I say we, as I cannot do it without the co-operation of the people." A piece of land has been given in Biche for building a church, while in the heart of Sangre Grande, Boynes and Company has already cleared church land to build a Sports & Cultural Centre with a chapel.
"Matura, at present has no church, we meet in a home, at Biche too. Salibya is falling down and is due to be restored next year when they are finished with Valencia. " With the help of three lay pastors, service is held on Sundays at each of the churches. Reverend Branche says one service every Sunday at Sangre Grande and goes in rotation to the other churches. If and when Father Branche leaves the parish, he plans to continue monitoring the situation. "We have a good vestry, as well, and people out here are very interested in the church. I am sure they are not going to let it fall, although mainenance is something very lacking in Trinidad. But if you do bits and pieces you keep it going."
Father Branche, who was only ordained a deacon by Bishop Clive Abdulah on March 14, 1992, and a priest on October 28, 1993 by Bishop Rawle Douglin. was pleasantly surprised when he received first a call from the Chancellor of the Diocese, Justice Paula Mae Weekes. "I had an inkling because I knew the meetings were progressing and I knew they had to come to a decision by the end of the month. When you hear they are calling you, you have an idea but you are still reserved, as suppose they were calling to find out something about another candidate." And Father Branche had presented one of the two earlier contenders, Canon Winston Joseph, at the second meeting of the Elective Assembly on October 2, 1999. Canon Noel Titus was the other candidate. Both priests failed to receive the specified two-thirds of the votes of laity and clergy at both meetings.
The Chancellor communicated that the Coadjutor Selection Committee of herself, Teasley Taitt (chairman), Hollis Lincoln, Ermine Ross, Victor Wheeler, Deacons Carlyle Adams and Gloria Waldron, Fathers Edwin Primus and Steve West, had considered Father Branche to be the Coadjutor. "Would I accept" was the question.
Then the Bishop called, the following week and wanted to see Father Branche that very day. "I went in the evening and he communicated that the committee had reported to him that I was the chosen one. We discussed the matter."
Born in Belmont, the only son of the late George and Alma Branche's four children, Ronald Branche attended St Margaret's Boys Anglican School and the Modern Academy. He worked at the Co-operative Bank or "penny bank" as it was called then, which is where he met his wife 26 years ago; was a supervisor at the St Michael's School for Boys in Diego Martin; worked with R. J. Shannon and was shop steward during a protracted industrial dispute. It was while running the family's Pioneer Health Food Store on Keate Street that he became a Lay Minister at St Michael's and All Angels in Diego Martin, under Father Matthew Gray.
"Deacon Joy Wiltshire, who passed away two months ago, would have been elated to-day. She was the engine in my ministry" says Father Branche. It was this determined woman who in 1985 encouraged him to become a lay minister. "Soon she had not only arranged for us to meet with Father Gray to have practice sessions, but she had already collected forms for enrollment in the Diploma of Theology Classes held every second Monday at High School, the name she attributed to her alma mater, Bishop Anstey Girls. She gave me the assurance that she would drop me home every night from class."
In the last year of the diploma course, Ronald Branche dropped out and went instead to the Roman Catholic Seminary of St John Vianney at Mount St Benedict "my son was doing exams and my wife was working at the Lottery people and I did not want to separate the family by going to Codrington in Barbados."
By 1991, Branche graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theology and then went to Codrington for one term, September to December 1991. "That is the one time I met Archbishop Drexel Gomez, who is now the person to seek confirmation of my new appointment, from the House of Bishops. He was inducting Codrington's new students when I entered in 1991, and was at that time Bishop of Barbados."
Father Branche has noticed that more people are showing interest in becoming priests. "It is a welcoming sign and we would want to fast- track the process, from interviews to acceptance and entrance into the ministry. At present there is a long delay, it is that kind of delay you would want to avoid as you turn them off. We want to encourage people. (women are now included). It is one of the things I would want to do."
The Bishop Coadjutor has no problems with women in Ministry and sees female deacons in this country moving up to the priesthood, as has already happened in Barbados and Jamaica.
Father Branche does not think that the gifts of the people in the Church are being widely used . "Up here, tomorrow morning, the youth choir will be doing the service. Sometimes, they get the opportunity even to preach. Ministry is about sharing and trying to include people, but sometimes we have this way to feel it is exclusive." The Coadjutor Bishop who will be consecrated and ordained on a date to be announced, shared his philosophy : "We want to bring together all the gifts that we have in God's Church for the building up of his Kingdom."