Haiti-Miracle Meeting

By Michael Norton, AP, 27 April 2003

PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 27 (AP)—Crowded under canopies, some 90,000 Haitians prayed Sunday for miracles to cure the array of ills bedeviling their nation, among the world’s poorest.

Some fell into trances, others pleaded for cures for physical ailments or even just a little money to survive.

Dozens raised Haitian passports to heaven and prayed that U.S. consular officers would be compassionate and grant them visas to escape their poverty.

Only carnival festivities attract more people than the annual Catholic Charismatic Conference in the Caribbean nation of 8 million.

Its success reflects our deepening despair and lack of confidence in rational solutions to Haiti’s mounting economic and social problems, said sociologist Laennec Hurbon, who works for the Paris-based National Center for Scientific Research.

People believe that only miracles can save them, he said of the crowds thronging the grounds of St. Louis de Gonzague School in suburban Delmas.

Many of the worshippers were from the Protestant Pentecostal movement. Others follow a homegrown voodoo fusion of West African and Roman Catholic beliefs. The three-day Roman Catholic meeting ends Sunday.

The only solution to the problems of our nation is the best solution—faith in Jesus, said Gertha Lucie Louissaint, 36.

Haiti has endured 20 years of political instability. Its most recent crisis started since flawed 2000 legislative elections swept by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas Family party. International donors froze $500 million in aid because of irregularities in the vote.

Street gangs claiming links to Aristide’s party have attacked demonstrators, journalists and opposition politicians.

People have long turned to the gods to ease their suffering.

What do I know about politics? said Yvann Pierre-Louis, a 40-year-old widow with seven children. I have nobody but Jesus to turn to in my distress.

Conference participants paid about $4.50 to cover the costs of the rented canopies, chairs and parasols that were handed out during the ceremony.

Outsides, scores of others who could not afford the fee, listened to the exhortations and hymns blaring through speakers.

Down with Satan! Trinidadian Rev. Yan Taylor yelled, stamping his foot as if that would put down the forces of evil.

Hallelujah! Amen! roared the tens of thousands who raised their hands in the air in unison, invoking the Holy Spirit to defeat the powers of darkness.

Everything’s possible when you believe in God, they sang.

Several people claimed they were cured. A man climbed the podium to say he had recovered his hearing, but his rambling responses to questions left the crowd in doubt.

But applause met the stumbling steps of a teenage boy, said to have been crippled for years, who walked falteringly after a priest laid hands on his head and prayed.

Millions in Haiti place faith in voodoo. The religion evolved from West African beliefs and developed further among slaves in the Caribbean who adopted elements of Catholicism.

In an executive decree earlier this month, Aristide invited voodoo adherents and organizations to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, has said he recognizes voodoo as a religion like any other, and a voodoo priestess bestowed a presidential sash on him at his first inauguration in 1991.