HAITI: Help for seminarians after earthquake
By John Pontifex
Seminarians at study in Port-au-Prince before the earthquake
Aid to the Church in Need is sending £61,000 to help more than 200 destitute seminarians in Haiti who are lucky to be alive after their college collapsed in the earthquake.
The urgent aid – being sent from Aid to the Church in Need’s UK office – comes after news that at least 30 students for the priesthood were confirmed dead after being crushed when the quake destroyed seminary buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians has responded by offering aid to provide food, medicine, clothing and shoes for the 200 or more seminarians who survived the quake.
The aid payment came after a desperate SOS appeal from Archbishop Louis Kébreau of Cap-Haïtien, who is chairman of the Haiti Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
The Salesian archbishop stressed the needs of the seminarians, saying that they had nobody to care for them and were desperate to return to their home dioceses, in many cases many miles away from Port-au-Prince.
The aid package, agreed late on Tuesday, 19th January, follows an aid payment of £45,000 for general emergency relief work, made on Friday 15th January. More help from Aid to the Church in Need is expected soon.
The charity has channelled its assistance through the apostolic nuncio to Haiti, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, who is bringing in aid from Santo Domingo, the capital of neighbouring Dominican Republic.
In a message to Aid to the Church in Need on Sunday, 17th January, Bishop Chibly Langlois of Fort-Liberté, described how he sent a mercy mission to Port-au-Prince to collect 16 diocesan seminarians, all of whom survived the quake.
The bishop wrote: “One of the seminarians spent two and a half days under the rubble. Another was injured. Three others received shocks and need special care. I have sent two to the Dominican Republic for check-ups and treatment impossible to get in Fort-Liberté.
“In addition, the seminarians were not able to recover their belongings. That means that it is necessary for us to provide not only medical assistance but also financial help so that they can get themselves a change of clothes and other basic necessities.”
In a sign that Aid to the Church in Need’s Haiti aid relief is unprecedented in scale, project chiefs have again signalled that the charity is poised to give more emergency and long-term help. Plans are emerging for an urgent project assessment trip to the country, now scheduled for March.
Aid to the Church in Need’s Latin America projects department has drafted a five-point plan prioritising more help for people trying to flee the areas worst-affected by the earthquake, as well as support for key Church structures including the CIFOR pastoral centre and repairs to the major seminary, both in Port-au-Prince.
It comes as the charity reports that it has received a series of distressing accounts of the suffering from priests, Sisters, bishops and lay alike.
Bishop Langlois of Fort-Liberté, wrote: “We live through this catastrophe clinging to faith and hope. Our prayers do not stop us turning to God who can help us overcome our sufferings through solidarity and communion with others.”
But amid reports of widespread damage, especially in Port-au-Prince, Archbishop Auza, the nuncio, sent an update to Aid to the Church in Need reporting an “endless list” of death and destruction.
Describing how “all our beautiful churches are wiped out”, he wrote that seminarians from the Montfordian religious order were trapped and killed in Port-au-Prince when their minibus was crushed by debris falling from the nearby CIFOR training and religious centre.
In his message, sent on Saturday 16th January, he reported that Daughters of Mary religious Sisters were still trapped in the rubble.
The provincial had died and those who had been rescued were wounded. Stressing his total reliance on the aid he had organised to be sent from the Dominican Republic, the nuncio added: “I have nowhere else to buy bread. I cannot multiply my sack of rice.”