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In the Parish of the Poor
The former president of Haiti's writings and sermons on the harsh reality and stubborn hope of the people of Haiti.
112 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1990
113 people want to read
About the author
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
23 books15 followersHaitian priest and politician Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first elected president in 1991, spent most of his term in the United States; troops restored him to power in 1994, and he served until 1996 and from 2001 to 2004 before a civil rebellion forced him once again into exile.
The college Notre Dame in Cap-Haïtien educated him and graduated him with honors in 1974. After a novitiate in la Vega, Dominican Republic, he returned to study psychology at the university and philosophy at the Grand Seminaire Notre Dame. He completed postgraduate work in 1979 and studied in Italy and Israel.
He returned in 1983 for Salesian ordination, and people appointed him a parish curate in Port-au-Prince and then the slums of la Saline; he gained an affectionate nickname of "Titide" or "Titid" in Haitian Creole. A liberation theologian, he led in the progressive wing of the "little" church and broadcast sermons on Catholic radio. Violence occurred across the nation in 1987.
In an interview of January 1988 with national Catholic reporter interview, he said, "The solution is revolution, first in the spirit of the Gospel; Jesus could not accept people going hungry. It is a conflict between classes, rich and poor. My role is to preach and organize." The Salesians expelled Father Aristide in 1988. They described his activities as an "incitement to hatred and violence."
People cautiously approached 1990. Aristide announced his candidacy. He during a six-week campaign dubbed his followers the "Front National pour le Changement et la Démocratie" and won with 67% of the vote. Taking office on 7 January 1991, he broke from Front National pour le Changement et la Démocratie and created the Organisation Politique Lavalas, Hatian Creole for "flood political organization." René Préval, prime minister, led government, and the Front National pour le Changement et la Démocratie controlled parliament; government failed a confidence vote on on 30 September 1991, so he afterward attempted to rule alone. The army performed a coup. People deposed him on 29 September 1991.
In accordance with article 149 of the constitution, people installed Joseph Nérette, justice of superior court, as Provisoire to hold a choice within 90 days. People scheduled new government, but pressure resulted in cancellation. Raoul Cédras, commander of Army, held real authority. Later, under international pressure, the military regime backed with foreign deployment.
On 15 October 1994, he returned to complete.
Leaving in 1994 enabled him to marry Mildred Trouillot, citizen, in 1995. They parented two daughters. He ended in February 1996. The constitution allowed no consecutive service. People disputed whether to count earlier years or the three years that he lost. People decided instead to count strictly according to the date of inauguration. René Préval, an ally, ran during the 1995 and took 88% of the vote. One-quarter participated.
In late 1996, he broke from the Organisation Politique Lavalas over its "distance from the people" and created a new party, the Fanmi Lavalas. The Organisation Politique Lavalas held the majority in the senate and the chamber of deputies, and people renamed it the Organisation du Peuple en Lutte to maintain the acronym.
Fanmi Lavalas won the legislature in 2000. Cable News Network watch reported a turnout of three-fifths, and more than 92% voted for Aristide. His party implemented reforms under his leadership. These reforms included increase in access to healthcare and education and adult literacy, protection for those accused of crimes, improvement of judicial training, prohibition of human trafficking, disband of the military, creation of a police, establishment of rights and freedoms, doubling of minimum wage, institution of land reform, assistance of small farms, provision of boat construction training, establishment of a low-cost food distribution network belo
The college Notre Dame in Cap-Haïtien educated him and graduated him with honors in 1974. After a novitiate in la Vega, Dominican Republic, he returned to study psychology at the university and philosophy at the Grand Seminaire Notre Dame. He completed postgraduate work in 1979 and studied in Italy and Israel.
He returned in 1983 for Salesian ordination, and people appointed him a parish curate in Port-au-Prince and then the slums of la Saline; he gained an affectionate nickname of "Titide" or "Titid" in Haitian Creole. A liberation theologian, he led in the progressive wing of the "little" church and broadcast sermons on Catholic radio. Violence occurred across the nation in 1987.
In an interview of January 1988 with national Catholic reporter interview, he said, "The solution is revolution, first in the spirit of the Gospel; Jesus could not accept people going hungry. It is a conflict between classes, rich and poor. My role is to preach and organize." The Salesians expelled Father Aristide in 1988. They described his activities as an "incitement to hatred and violence."
People cautiously approached 1990. Aristide announced his candidacy. He during a six-week campaign dubbed his followers the "Front National pour le Changement et la Démocratie" and won with 67% of the vote. Taking office on 7 January 1991, he broke from Front National pour le Changement et la Démocratie and created the Organisation Politique Lavalas, Hatian Creole for "flood political organization." René Préval, prime minister, led government, and the Front National pour le Changement et la Démocratie controlled parliament; government failed a confidence vote on on 30 September 1991, so he afterward attempted to rule alone. The army performed a coup. People deposed him on 29 September 1991.
In accordance with article 149 of the constitution, people installed Joseph Nérette, justice of superior court, as Provisoire to hold a choice within 90 days. People scheduled new government, but pressure resulted in cancellation. Raoul Cédras, commander of Army, held real authority. Later, under international pressure, the military regime backed with foreign deployment.
On 15 October 1994, he returned to complete.
Leaving in 1994 enabled him to marry Mildred Trouillot, citizen, in 1995. They parented two daughters. He ended in February 1996. The constitution allowed no consecutive service. People disputed whether to count earlier years or the three years that he lost. People decided instead to count strictly according to the date of inauguration. René Préval, an ally, ran during the 1995 and took 88% of the vote. One-quarter participated.
In late 1996, he broke from the Organisation Politique Lavalas over its "distance from the people" and created a new party, the Fanmi Lavalas. The Organisation Politique Lavalas held the majority in the senate and the chamber of deputies, and people renamed it the Organisation du Peuple en Lutte to maintain the acronym.
Fanmi Lavalas won the legislature in 2000. Cable News Network watch reported a turnout of three-fifths, and more than 92% voted for Aristide. His party implemented reforms under his leadership. These reforms included increase in access to healthcare and education and adult literacy, protection for those accused of crimes, improvement of judicial training, prohibition of human trafficking, disband of the military, creation of a police, establishment of rights and freedoms, doubling of minimum wage, institution of land reform, assistance of small farms, provision of boat construction training, establishment of a low-cost food distribution network belo
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September 23, 2023
This is divided in two parts. The first part is an open letter addressed to other priests of the theology of liberation accross Latin America. The second is a collection of transcripted addresses he gave (either as sermons in his church, or as addresses on the radio). All written or spoken a little bit between the overthrow (a bit before that) of the second Duvalier and the coup d'état by Prosper Avril, so before Aristide ever got into power.
He probably was not even considering the possibility of becoming president at the time. Although throughout the whole book he is speaking out (generally) against the ruling classes, most of his invectives were initially directed at the church hierarchy for not speaking out for him when he was (repeatedly) attacked by the army and paramilitaries of Duvalier. Towards the end, in the addresses given after Duvalier was overthrown, he starts being more directly political. Probably when he started to concretely realize that it wasn't just about overthrowing one dictator. That's the first time he actually addresses not only his church congregation but also non-believers and even practicioners of different religions.
Here he's much more radical (at least in words), even openly calling for revolution. He clearly understood that a complete overthrow of the existing society was necessary and called for that. But even then, his program was already as modest and confused as it would be later on: "life as a decent poor [decent poor...] man should live it, in a dry house with a floor and a real roof, at a table with food, free from curable Illness, working a meaningful job or tilling the fields to his or her profit, proud". So essentially what he would call characterize later on as "moving from misery to poverty with dignity".
He also vaguely calls to get organized. But not much detail is given there. Although it is clear he was somewhat involved in the base communities of the church and he had ties with the peasants and labor organizations. He definitely did not see a difference between a coup d'état and a revolution either. But the guy's just a priest.
One thing that is painfully obvious is how irresponsible he was with not only his own life but those of everyone around him. He was simply going through the events as if he were powerless and his only power was his faith. Yes, he was ready to die a martyr at any moment, but who the fuck wishes for more martyrs to mourn. I won't put too much blame on him considering how powerful and ubiquitous the army and the paramilitares were at that moment in Haiti. But he still could have at least tried and strategized how to avoid unnecessary deaths of his own people. But again, at that point he is still just a random (incredibly charismatic and master of crowds) priest thrown up on the stage by the events. So I shouldn't expect him to have acted as a professional revolutionary.
Overall this gives a very good idea of his (confused) world view. It's also worth the read for the hints into the real mass processes that were going on at that time. But definitely not the best book for that. And I would have preferred to read it in the original french and creole because translations are never true but even less so when it comes to Aristide, the man is too good with words to be translated.
He probably was not even considering the possibility of becoming president at the time. Although throughout the whole book he is speaking out (generally) against the ruling classes, most of his invectives were initially directed at the church hierarchy for not speaking out for him when he was (repeatedly) attacked by the army and paramilitaries of Duvalier. Towards the end, in the addresses given after Duvalier was overthrown, he starts being more directly political. Probably when he started to concretely realize that it wasn't just about overthrowing one dictator. That's the first time he actually addresses not only his church congregation but also non-believers and even practicioners of different religions.
Here he's much more radical (at least in words), even openly calling for revolution. He clearly understood that a complete overthrow of the existing society was necessary and called for that. But even then, his program was already as modest and confused as it would be later on: "life as a decent poor [decent poor...] man should live it, in a dry house with a floor and a real roof, at a table with food, free from curable Illness, working a meaningful job or tilling the fields to his or her profit, proud". So essentially what he would call characterize later on as "moving from misery to poverty with dignity".
He also vaguely calls to get organized. But not much detail is given there. Although it is clear he was somewhat involved in the base communities of the church and he had ties with the peasants and labor organizations. He definitely did not see a difference between a coup d'état and a revolution either. But the guy's just a priest.
One thing that is painfully obvious is how irresponsible he was with not only his own life but those of everyone around him. He was simply going through the events as if he were powerless and his only power was his faith. Yes, he was ready to die a martyr at any moment, but who the fuck wishes for more martyrs to mourn. I won't put too much blame on him considering how powerful and ubiquitous the army and the paramilitares were at that moment in Haiti. But he still could have at least tried and strategized how to avoid unnecessary deaths of his own people. But again, at that point he is still just a random (incredibly charismatic and master of crowds) priest thrown up on the stage by the events. So I shouldn't expect him to have acted as a professional revolutionary.
Overall this gives a very good idea of his (confused) world view. It's also worth the read for the hints into the real mass processes that were going on at that time. But definitely not the best book for that. And I would have preferred to read it in the original french and creole because translations are never true but even less so when it comes to Aristide, the man is too good with words to be translated.
May 31, 2023
This is a book I highly recommend to everyone. It is moving, and tragic, and beautiful, despite being so short. It speaks to the reality of Haiti, the reality of Latin America, and the reality of the Christian faith.
Here are some segments that I really liked:
On Justice:
"But what will they come back to? Where will they remain? say to them: Come back and make a new Haiti. Spurn comfort.
Come back, live in misery, and build a new way. Of all people. you - brothers and sisters- know what it means to build a new way when everyone who is working on the new construction is living in misery.
You have seen the people scavenging for food on the garbage heaps of Rio de Janeiro, and you have seen them starving in the barrios of Panama City. You know how hard it is to build Utopia on a garbage heap; indeed, it is hard to build even a decent poor man's home there.
But that is all we ask, a decent poor man's home, and no more corruption, no more inflicted misery, no more children bathing in sewage.
That is what I ask my people to come back to build. It is not so very much, a decent poor man's home- not such a big job.
But in my country, and in your countries, it seems impossible.
That is because we are all living under a system so corrupt that to ask for a plate of rice and beans every day for every man, woman and child is to preach a revolution.
That is the crime of which I stand accused: preaching food for all men and women.
I have spoken of - and indeed, I can imagine - a Haiti where at three or four in the afternoon, every afternoon, every person sits down and has a great big steaming hot plate of rice and beans. That would be a peaceful country.
Today, the country is not peaceful. In some places, the people hardly manage to eat one hot meal a week. In other dark places throughout the country, men and women work all day in their dry fields and have only a few plantains for dinner.
They crouch and eat with their fingers, because they cannot afford a fork. In dark places in the provincial towns they travel all morning to market and then sit there all day selling their wares and earning only a few pennies, and then they have only a few plantains to eat for dinner, or a bit of cassava, or rice without beans, or a little cornmeal.
Yet while the peasant eats his cornmeal mash with his fingers, men and women up on a hill high above my dying Port-au-Prince are sitting at tables and eating steaks and pate and veal flown in from across the water.
The rich of my country, a tiny percentage of our population, sit at a vast table covered in white damask and overflowing with good food, while the rest of my countrymen and countrywomen are crowded under that table, hunched over in the dirt and starving.
It is a violent situation, and one day the people under that table will rise up in righteousness, and knock the table of privilege over, and take what rightfully belongs to them.
Brothers and sisters, it is our mission to help them stand up and live as human beings. That is what we have all been working for for all these years in the parishes of the poor."
On John Paul II:
"I fear often that those in the hierarchy of the Church who believe in compromise are willing to compromise in one direction only, and that is with power.
They do not want to compromise with those of us in the Church who have a different vision of the Church's role.
Often, when we of the Little Church are engaged in a struggle and need the counsel of our older brothers in the hierarchy, they refuse to meet us, to speak with us. This causes discord, and discord is not good for the Church or for Haiti.
Often, we fear that the cold behavior of our older brothers is dictated by another man, a man who lives in another country, a country not his own, a man who wears long white robes, and stands, an equal, beside the Church's beloved yellow and white banner. You know which man I mean, brothers and sisters.
That man in Rome is our brother in Jesus Christ. He is a brother to the poor of Haiti, and to those of us in the Little Church.
I wish him well in his life, and in his sacred mission. I wish him well and honor him and love him as I love all my fellow men and women.
But he does not love me in return, brothers and sisters, and we all know that love comes closest to achieving its ideal -which is Jesus' love for his Church and his Church's love for Jesus-when it is requited.
Now, the question I have puzzled over, as I have tried to lead my life over the past three years, has been, Why does this man not love me?
Why does he not cherish and protect me as I would do him?
Why does he wish to exile me from the loving heart of our sacred family, the Church?
How can my brother not love me, when I love him so purely and passionately, as I do my family, our Church?
Let me turn that light on the face of the man who lives in Rome, my beloved brother.
Who is this man, in truth?
What is my family, the family he heads, the Church, in truth?
Let us be honest, let us be clear-minded.
Yes, the Church is by tradition the family of God, and this man is its appointed and anointed leader. That is one truth, one part of the truth.
Yes, this man is chosen by his colleagues and then blessed and anointed as infallible. That, too, is one part of the truth.
Yes, his word and the word of his bishops becomes a vital part of the doctrine of the Church. That is true.
From him at the center extend all powers within the Church throughout the world; that is true.
Yet, I must remind myself, and my little lamp helps me remember, he is just a man, a man doing a job.
Ah, my little lamp. Its light of solidarity illuminates the darkest corners of all difficult questions. Just a man doing a job.
Now I can see him more clearly. What is the paradigm for the pope in the secular world today? I ask myself. Why, it's all too clear. Of course. All the shadows around him, the smoke and mirrors, fall away.
Who is this man? He is the chief executive officer of a multinational corporation. And what is the job of a CEO of a multinational corporation?
To protect the international interests of the company, to ensure its continued existence, to safeguard its officers from dissension among its rank-and-file employees and shareholders, and to provide, at the farthest reach of the corporation, a product that the consumer will purchase.
His job is to ensure efficiency, continuity, and profit, while maintaining the status quo within the company.
I think this is a fair job description for the man who lives in Rome, and I am not the only one who thinks so.
Yet he and his colleagues have a secret weapon that no other corporate officers can boast; United Fruit never had this weapon, nor did Gulf + Western or the National City Bank. That weapon is belief, the long-established belief of the people -the final con-sumer- in the word of the Church.
The man in Rome and his colleagues are able to wrap company policy up in the proud yellow and white of the Church.
They can pronounce and prettify efficiency actions using the beautiful words of the Bible.
They can dress up their officers and parade them around the Church as men of God.
They can take the policies of United Fruit, Gulf + Western and the National City Bank, all multinational corporations like the Church-with the same interests - and package them along with their own policies, and call that package truth.
But buyer beware! Will the people buy that package? Not
any longer.
The various struggles of the world's poor for economic and political liberation, combined with the establishment of an indigenous clergy and involved lay people, have made the people wary of the yellow and white package.
And in truth, we ourselves must be careful.
We in the Little
Church must negotiate a path between company policy and that road we know to be the just and honest way, the way of the Gospels.
We must not be swayed to collaborate and conciliate, but must stay firmly in the camp of the poor.
Yet our home is in the Church. If we do not like what we see in the Church, we must work to change that, work in the ways we see fit.
We must make sure to build that decent, poor man's home -our Church- in the parish of the poor, for that is its only proper neighborhood. We must work from dawn till dawn to make our home brighter, cleaner, more blessed."
On the violence at Fort Dimanche:
"On April 26, not even three months after Duvalier had fled before the people's wrath, the people decided to commemorate the victims of one of the darkest places in all of Haiti, Fort Dimanche.
The light of life does not shine on Fort Dimanche.
Just down the road from my little church, this notorious prison sat like a black hole, sucking up what pieces of life were thrown into its swallowing gorge.
During the years of its use as a prison and torture camp, it grew bigger and bigger, fattening itself on the blood of the Haitian people.
Its excesses of cruelty left the entire nation in mourning. Its claws reached into the bosoms of thousands of families, snatching away sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, newlyweds, and children, never to be seen again.
It was a symbol of the Army and the police and the Tontons Macoute, of all the forces organized to destroy us.
It was decided that a Mass of mourning would be said at Sacre Coeur Church, and then a procession would wind through town to Fort Dimanche, where we would kneel and pray for the prison's victims.
I rode alongside the procession with another priest and a few journalists from the Church radio station, Radio Soleil, in the station's jeep.
We were broadcasting live from the procession, and we would broadcast live from Fort Dimanche.
We arrived at the prison in the midst of a crowd of thousands and thousands of people, people who were suffering because they remembered their children, the families they had lost, they were swimming in pain, they were enveloped in the blackness of mourning because too many bad memories had turned into a long nightmare before their eyes.
We had just arrived in front of the prison when shots rang out, shot after shot.
Everyone began to run. People lost their shoes. Tear gas fell upon us. It was so horrifying that we had to ask ourselves whether what we were seeing could possibly be true. It was so odd, so shocking, that even when we saw what was happening before our very eyes, we could not believe it was happening.
But we could not lie to ourselves; we kept our eyes open to make sure it was not a hallucination of the past we were witnessing, to make sure that this new nightmare was real.
The head of Fort Dimanche was there, lying flat on his stomach, with his gun in his hand as if he were hunting.
They were firing on the innocent, people who had been praying.
They were firing on the innocent, who were begging for help, for pity, their rosaries in their hands, their little handkerchiefs full of tears, their Bibles in their hands.
But you cannot fight bullets with a rosary, a handkerchief, or a Bible.
No, and many of them had nothing at all in their hands, they were emptyhanded and facing the guns of Fort Dimanche.
. . .
But I believe that when your conscience is clean, and your mind is clear, and your faith turns into a motor ready to do what is good and what is correct, well then, at that moment, it is not you yourself who is really deciding what you will do, but a part of your spirit, in communion with the Holy Spirit.
Although it seems that you can choose, in reality you have no choice; the book of your life is already written out for you.
Thus, it was not really I who lived, as Saint Paul says, but Jesus Christ who was living through me, as I still wish for him to go on living through me.
So at that moment, I felt myself to be completely a missionary, completely a servant to the Spirit, completely in the hands of God, on a mission that went beyond my own weaknesses or strengths, that went beyond what I myself am, and I obeyed, and went to Fort Dimanche, because the Lord commanded me to go.
. . . Thus, brothers and sisters, you can see why I felt so close to death two days later as the shots rang out in front of Fort Dimanche.
I knew what beast lived within that hideous fortress, I knew the pain he liked to inflict.
Fort Dimanche itself is just a building, but men - men with the spirits of beasts - have turned it into a killing ground, a concentration camp.
Haiti is a prison. In that prison, there are rules you must abide by, or suffer the pain of death.
You sent
Never ask for more than what the prison warden considers your share.
Never ask for more than a cupful of rice and a drink of dirty water.
Remain in your cell. Though it is crowded and stinking and full of human refuse, remain there, and do not complain. That is your lot.
Another rule is: Do not organize. Do not speak to your fellow prisoners about your plight.
Every time you get two cups of rice, another prisoner will go hungry. Every time another prisoner gets two drinks of dirty water, you will go thirsty.
Hate your fellow man.
Another rule is: accept your punishment silently. Do not cry out. You are guilty. The warden has decreed it. Live in silence until you die.
Never try to escape, for escape means a certain return to this prison, and worse cruelty, worse torture. If you dare to escape in your little boat, the corrections officers from the cold country to the north will capture you and send you back to eke out your days within the confines of your eternal prison, which is Haiti.
Fort Dimanche is Haiti. Fort Dimanche is Latin America today. Latin America and Haiti today are Fort Dimanche.
Fort Dimanche spits out bullets and tear gas and death.
It spews rules, regulations, law, order, decree and death.
It vomits on us a system of cruelty, repression, exploitation, misery, and death.
If we live by its rules, we will certainly perish beneath its whip.
You sent
I say: Disobey the rules. Ask for more. Leave your wretchedness behind.
Organize with your brothers and sisters. Never accept the hand of fate. Keep hope alive.
Refuse the squalor of the parishes of the poor. Escape the charnel house and move toward life.
Fill the parishes of the poor with hope and meaning and life.
March out of the prison, down the hard and pitiless road toward life, and you will find the parishes of the poor gleaming and sparkling with joy in the sunrise at the road's end.
Children with strong bodies will run with platefuls of rice and beans to greet their starving saviors. That is your reward.
Along that hard and pitiless road toward life, death comes as an honor.
But life in the charnel house is a disgrace, an affront to humankind."
Here are some segments that I really liked:
On Justice:
"But what will they come back to? Where will they remain? say to them: Come back and make a new Haiti. Spurn comfort.
Come back, live in misery, and build a new way. Of all people. you - brothers and sisters- know what it means to build a new way when everyone who is working on the new construction is living in misery.
You have seen the people scavenging for food on the garbage heaps of Rio de Janeiro, and you have seen them starving in the barrios of Panama City. You know how hard it is to build Utopia on a garbage heap; indeed, it is hard to build even a decent poor man's home there.
But that is all we ask, a decent poor man's home, and no more corruption, no more inflicted misery, no more children bathing in sewage.
That is what I ask my people to come back to build. It is not so very much, a decent poor man's home- not such a big job.
But in my country, and in your countries, it seems impossible.
That is because we are all living under a system so corrupt that to ask for a plate of rice and beans every day for every man, woman and child is to preach a revolution.
That is the crime of which I stand accused: preaching food for all men and women.
I have spoken of - and indeed, I can imagine - a Haiti where at three or four in the afternoon, every afternoon, every person sits down and has a great big steaming hot plate of rice and beans. That would be a peaceful country.
Today, the country is not peaceful. In some places, the people hardly manage to eat one hot meal a week. In other dark places throughout the country, men and women work all day in their dry fields and have only a few plantains for dinner.
They crouch and eat with their fingers, because they cannot afford a fork. In dark places in the provincial towns they travel all morning to market and then sit there all day selling their wares and earning only a few pennies, and then they have only a few plantains to eat for dinner, or a bit of cassava, or rice without beans, or a little cornmeal.
Yet while the peasant eats his cornmeal mash with his fingers, men and women up on a hill high above my dying Port-au-Prince are sitting at tables and eating steaks and pate and veal flown in from across the water.
The rich of my country, a tiny percentage of our population, sit at a vast table covered in white damask and overflowing with good food, while the rest of my countrymen and countrywomen are crowded under that table, hunched over in the dirt and starving.
It is a violent situation, and one day the people under that table will rise up in righteousness, and knock the table of privilege over, and take what rightfully belongs to them.
Brothers and sisters, it is our mission to help them stand up and live as human beings. That is what we have all been working for for all these years in the parishes of the poor."
On John Paul II:
"I fear often that those in the hierarchy of the Church who believe in compromise are willing to compromise in one direction only, and that is with power.
They do not want to compromise with those of us in the Church who have a different vision of the Church's role.
Often, when we of the Little Church are engaged in a struggle and need the counsel of our older brothers in the hierarchy, they refuse to meet us, to speak with us. This causes discord, and discord is not good for the Church or for Haiti.
Often, we fear that the cold behavior of our older brothers is dictated by another man, a man who lives in another country, a country not his own, a man who wears long white robes, and stands, an equal, beside the Church's beloved yellow and white banner. You know which man I mean, brothers and sisters.
That man in Rome is our brother in Jesus Christ. He is a brother to the poor of Haiti, and to those of us in the Little Church.
I wish him well in his life, and in his sacred mission. I wish him well and honor him and love him as I love all my fellow men and women.
But he does not love me in return, brothers and sisters, and we all know that love comes closest to achieving its ideal -which is Jesus' love for his Church and his Church's love for Jesus-when it is requited.
Now, the question I have puzzled over, as I have tried to lead my life over the past three years, has been, Why does this man not love me?
Why does he not cherish and protect me as I would do him?
Why does he wish to exile me from the loving heart of our sacred family, the Church?
How can my brother not love me, when I love him so purely and passionately, as I do my family, our Church?
Let me turn that light on the face of the man who lives in Rome, my beloved brother.
Who is this man, in truth?
What is my family, the family he heads, the Church, in truth?
Let us be honest, let us be clear-minded.
Yes, the Church is by tradition the family of God, and this man is its appointed and anointed leader. That is one truth, one part of the truth.
Yes, this man is chosen by his colleagues and then blessed and anointed as infallible. That, too, is one part of the truth.
Yes, his word and the word of his bishops becomes a vital part of the doctrine of the Church. That is true.
From him at the center extend all powers within the Church throughout the world; that is true.
Yet, I must remind myself, and my little lamp helps me remember, he is just a man, a man doing a job.
Ah, my little lamp. Its light of solidarity illuminates the darkest corners of all difficult questions. Just a man doing a job.
Now I can see him more clearly. What is the paradigm for the pope in the secular world today? I ask myself. Why, it's all too clear. Of course. All the shadows around him, the smoke and mirrors, fall away.
Who is this man? He is the chief executive officer of a multinational corporation. And what is the job of a CEO of a multinational corporation?
To protect the international interests of the company, to ensure its continued existence, to safeguard its officers from dissension among its rank-and-file employees and shareholders, and to provide, at the farthest reach of the corporation, a product that the consumer will purchase.
His job is to ensure efficiency, continuity, and profit, while maintaining the status quo within the company.
I think this is a fair job description for the man who lives in Rome, and I am not the only one who thinks so.
Yet he and his colleagues have a secret weapon that no other corporate officers can boast; United Fruit never had this weapon, nor did Gulf + Western or the National City Bank. That weapon is belief, the long-established belief of the people -the final con-sumer- in the word of the Church.
The man in Rome and his colleagues are able to wrap company policy up in the proud yellow and white of the Church.
They can pronounce and prettify efficiency actions using the beautiful words of the Bible.
They can dress up their officers and parade them around the Church as men of God.
They can take the policies of United Fruit, Gulf + Western and the National City Bank, all multinational corporations like the Church-with the same interests - and package them along with their own policies, and call that package truth.
But buyer beware! Will the people buy that package? Not
any longer.
The various struggles of the world's poor for economic and political liberation, combined with the establishment of an indigenous clergy and involved lay people, have made the people wary of the yellow and white package.
And in truth, we ourselves must be careful.
We in the Little
Church must negotiate a path between company policy and that road we know to be the just and honest way, the way of the Gospels.
We must not be swayed to collaborate and conciliate, but must stay firmly in the camp of the poor.
Yet our home is in the Church. If we do not like what we see in the Church, we must work to change that, work in the ways we see fit.
We must make sure to build that decent, poor man's home -our Church- in the parish of the poor, for that is its only proper neighborhood. We must work from dawn till dawn to make our home brighter, cleaner, more blessed."
On the violence at Fort Dimanche:
"On April 26, not even three months after Duvalier had fled before the people's wrath, the people decided to commemorate the victims of one of the darkest places in all of Haiti, Fort Dimanche.
The light of life does not shine on Fort Dimanche.
Just down the road from my little church, this notorious prison sat like a black hole, sucking up what pieces of life were thrown into its swallowing gorge.
During the years of its use as a prison and torture camp, it grew bigger and bigger, fattening itself on the blood of the Haitian people.
Its excesses of cruelty left the entire nation in mourning. Its claws reached into the bosoms of thousands of families, snatching away sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, newlyweds, and children, never to be seen again.
It was a symbol of the Army and the police and the Tontons Macoute, of all the forces organized to destroy us.
It was decided that a Mass of mourning would be said at Sacre Coeur Church, and then a procession would wind through town to Fort Dimanche, where we would kneel and pray for the prison's victims.
I rode alongside the procession with another priest and a few journalists from the Church radio station, Radio Soleil, in the station's jeep.
We were broadcasting live from the procession, and we would broadcast live from Fort Dimanche.
We arrived at the prison in the midst of a crowd of thousands and thousands of people, people who were suffering because they remembered their children, the families they had lost, they were swimming in pain, they were enveloped in the blackness of mourning because too many bad memories had turned into a long nightmare before their eyes.
We had just arrived in front of the prison when shots rang out, shot after shot.
Everyone began to run. People lost their shoes. Tear gas fell upon us. It was so horrifying that we had to ask ourselves whether what we were seeing could possibly be true. It was so odd, so shocking, that even when we saw what was happening before our very eyes, we could not believe it was happening.
But we could not lie to ourselves; we kept our eyes open to make sure it was not a hallucination of the past we were witnessing, to make sure that this new nightmare was real.
The head of Fort Dimanche was there, lying flat on his stomach, with his gun in his hand as if he were hunting.
They were firing on the innocent, people who had been praying.
They were firing on the innocent, who were begging for help, for pity, their rosaries in their hands, their little handkerchiefs full of tears, their Bibles in their hands.
But you cannot fight bullets with a rosary, a handkerchief, or a Bible.
No, and many of them had nothing at all in their hands, they were emptyhanded and facing the guns of Fort Dimanche.
. . .
But I believe that when your conscience is clean, and your mind is clear, and your faith turns into a motor ready to do what is good and what is correct, well then, at that moment, it is not you yourself who is really deciding what you will do, but a part of your spirit, in communion with the Holy Spirit.
Although it seems that you can choose, in reality you have no choice; the book of your life is already written out for you.
Thus, it was not really I who lived, as Saint Paul says, but Jesus Christ who was living through me, as I still wish for him to go on living through me.
So at that moment, I felt myself to be completely a missionary, completely a servant to the Spirit, completely in the hands of God, on a mission that went beyond my own weaknesses or strengths, that went beyond what I myself am, and I obeyed, and went to Fort Dimanche, because the Lord commanded me to go.
. . . Thus, brothers and sisters, you can see why I felt so close to death two days later as the shots rang out in front of Fort Dimanche.
I knew what beast lived within that hideous fortress, I knew the pain he liked to inflict.
Fort Dimanche itself is just a building, but men - men with the spirits of beasts - have turned it into a killing ground, a concentration camp.
Haiti is a prison. In that prison, there are rules you must abide by, or suffer the pain of death.
You sent
Never ask for more than what the prison warden considers your share.
Never ask for more than a cupful of rice and a drink of dirty water.
Remain in your cell. Though it is crowded and stinking and full of human refuse, remain there, and do not complain. That is your lot.
Another rule is: Do not organize. Do not speak to your fellow prisoners about your plight.
Every time you get two cups of rice, another prisoner will go hungry. Every time another prisoner gets two drinks of dirty water, you will go thirsty.
Hate your fellow man.
Another rule is: accept your punishment silently. Do not cry out. You are guilty. The warden has decreed it. Live in silence until you die.
Never try to escape, for escape means a certain return to this prison, and worse cruelty, worse torture. If you dare to escape in your little boat, the corrections officers from the cold country to the north will capture you and send you back to eke out your days within the confines of your eternal prison, which is Haiti.
Fort Dimanche is Haiti. Fort Dimanche is Latin America today. Latin America and Haiti today are Fort Dimanche.
Fort Dimanche spits out bullets and tear gas and death.
It spews rules, regulations, law, order, decree and death.
It vomits on us a system of cruelty, repression, exploitation, misery, and death.
If we live by its rules, we will certainly perish beneath its whip.
You sent
I say: Disobey the rules. Ask for more. Leave your wretchedness behind.
Organize with your brothers and sisters. Never accept the hand of fate. Keep hope alive.
Refuse the squalor of the parishes of the poor. Escape the charnel house and move toward life.
Fill the parishes of the poor with hope and meaning and life.
March out of the prison, down the hard and pitiless road toward life, and you will find the parishes of the poor gleaming and sparkling with joy in the sunrise at the road's end.
Children with strong bodies will run with platefuls of rice and beans to greet their starving saviors. That is your reward.
Along that hard and pitiless road toward life, death comes as an honor.
But life in the charnel house is a disgrace, an affront to humankind."
May 3, 2021
The media and upper branches of power can brainwash the masses but reading first hand Aristide's sermons and message, I find myself coming away an admirer. This amazing compilation does not change tone and steadily calls for Latin American unity in the fight against corruption and Neo-Colonialism. Aristide has a way of getting you to understand and empathize with the poor peasants in Haiti. Aristide spotlights things that the clergy would rather keep in the dark. The sectarian violence amongst the Catholic Church in Haiti being waged between Jesuits and Salesians, Protestant vs Catholic, Vatican vs Ti Legliz. Calling out criminals like Franck Romain and Namphy. Aristide is a hero of the people.
July 1, 2023
A great brief book that gives you a good idea of the state of mind of Aristide before he was president. The first 70 pages are an open letter encouraging liberation to anyone who will listen in Latin America, while also serving as a memoir depicting the trials and tribulations he went through in the latter part of the 1980s. The next 30 pages are transcriptions of various sermons he gave during this same time period. Aristide's pen is very simple, and carries the tone of an impassioned preacher, which he was. Overall I enjoyed reading quite a lot.
January 12, 2011
Though liberation theologian Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a controversial figure, especially among the non-rural populations of Haiti, this book (which is translated by Amy Wilentz) is a very interesting insight into the foundations of Aristides beliefs. It's not as if what he is saying is false, that Haiti is not characterized by harsh class division with the majority of the population living in squalor. I suppose this controversy will continue but that being said-a lot of the writing is beautiful.
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