Haiti bishop says gangs target Church as violence shuts parishes, schools

Bishop Joseph Gontrand Décoste of Jérémie, Haiti, detailed the ongoing violence in the nation and warned that the Church has become a target for gangs.

The Church is “the last remaining bulkhead — moral, ethical, spiritual, and prophetic,” he said. “That is why they want to eliminate us.”

Décoste told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), an international Catholic pastoral aid organization, that despite the widespread violence in the Caribbean nation, the Church remains hopeful.

“We keep praying, singing, and dancing. In Haiti we say: ‘As long as they haven’t cut off our head, we still have hope of wearing a hat.’ That is why we never lose hope,” he said.

The bishop thanked organizations working to offer aid to the nation. He said: “Your prayers sustain us enormously; without them we could not carry on. Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart.”

Gang violence in the nation continues to rise with armed gangs controlling between 70% and 90% of the capital.

Amid the violence, in Port-au-Prince, 40 parishes have had to close, according to ACN. Schools and religious houses have also been attacked, burned, and seized.

Sister Paesie, a Catholic sister who operates an organization to aid children in Cité Soleil, Haiti, also highlighted the increasing violence.

The sister and her team at the Kizito Family, which runs homes, schools, and catechism programs, recently took in dozens more children following numerous recent attacks.

Sister Paesie told EWTN News that last week gangs attacked an area in Port-au-Prince where the organization operates one of its schools. Most of the population fled besides a few elderly people who were unable to, and most were killed.

“The parents began bringing children to us for shelter,” she told EWTN News. On Aug. 9, “we took in about 20” and “others came yesterday, and about 50 today.”

“The Missionaries of Charity accepted to take in the girls” and “we have the boys,” she said.

“Among them were four brothers [who] were alone when the attack took place. The parents had gone to work, and a cousin grabbed them and fled. When the father returned home, he was not aware of the attack. He was killed and burned. The mother did not show up … where the people took refuge,” she said.

Sister Paesie also detailed how the attacks and destruction have left organizations, many of them run by religious orders, unable to operate and provide aid to those in need.

She specifically noted a Missionaries of Charity convent that was attacked and burned down two years ago.

It remains “completely empty and the buildings destroyed,” she said. “It used to receive more than 2,000 patients every year.”

U.S. bishops urge protection for Haitian nationals on TPS

U.S. bishops have continuously warned of the unsafe conditions in Haiti, urging lawmakers to extend temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian nationals living in the United States.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami has previously said that ending temporary residency protections for Haitians would be “sending people into a burning building.”

He said Haiti “remains a country on the brink,” noting the “widespread gang violence and kidnapping, a rampant cholera epidemic, and spreading food insecurity.”

“The lack of functioning state institutions has resulted in a general breakdown of security, with attacks on women and children becoming commonplace,” he said. “It would be an act of abject cruelty for the United States to send families back to such dangerous and unsafe conditions.”

Other Florida bishops, and many Ohio bishops, have also addressed the matter, calling for a more permanent solution to care for the refugees.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation in April, and the Senate has not acted on that measure or on a bill (S. 4814), which would require the Homeland Security secretary to designate Haiti for TPS through early 2029, giving eligible Haitian nationals in the United States protection from deportation and authorization to work while conditions in Haiti remain unsafe.

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/haiti-bishop-says-gangs-target-church-as-violence-shuts-parishes-schools