A syntax error [...] not allowing CGI::Carp to function.

Although there was a recent version of CGI::Carp that failed to catch compile-time errors, it is supposed to catch those and it can catch compile-time errors that occur in code after the use CGI::Carp statement.

So make the use CGI::Carp statement the first statement before you include any other modules. It still won't be able to catch errors in the #! line and certain configuration errors (or the lack of the CGI::Carp module itself or modules it depends upon), but I'll put even money on it finding this error.