Monday 18 August 2008

By John Newton

Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need is backing plans to increase seminarians’ concern for the poor in Haiti.

The Bishop’s Conference of Haiti has decided seminarians will undertake a year of pastoral work before beginning their theological training – and Aid to the Church in Need has promised to help fund the programme.

"We are in a very poor region," Archbishop Louis N. Kébreau of Cap-Haitian, President of the Bishop’s Conference of Haiti, told ACN.

"The seminarians need to strengthen their awareness of belonging to the Church, and they must share the pastoral concern for a poor Church in a poor country."

The bishops hope that this new model of training will deepen the seminarians’ appreciation of human rights and the Church’s values. The scheme will also aim to strengthen the pastoral commitment of candidates for the priesthood.

The archbishop went on to describe how the pastoral training would help seminarians to focus on prayer and the task of deepening the people’s spirituality, as well as giving them a better regard for Christian morality and the teachings of the Bible.

The programme will centre round a training centre to be set up in an old house in the diocese of Hinche.
But the building is virtually uninhabitable. The roof is badly damaged and all the electrical wiring needs to be replaced. Work also needs to be done in the chapel, the kitchen and the refectory, in order to make them useable.

ACN will be providing support to help make the house habitable, including a new space-age roof, which will last for decades to come.

Archbishop Kébreau said: "Our seminarians are not able to pay for their formation, or to help towards the expenses of renovating the building where they live."

Poverty is widespread in Haiti, with unemployment rife and more than three quarters of the country’s 8.7 million inhabitants living below the poverty line.

Haiti occupies the western third of the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. About 80% of Haitians are Roman Catholic.

[ACN]