An attack on a seminary in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is the most recent in a series of incidents involving Catholic Church targets, amid the worst crisis in the Caribbean nation in several years. Source: OSV News.
A group of armed criminals invaded the Petit Séminaire Collège Saint Martial, a minor seminary of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, on April 1 and set fire to the cars parked in the yard. The four priests who were present in the venue managed to run and hide in a nearby cathedral, along with four employees.
The invaders vandalised several rooms of the seminary, including the administrative offices and the residential area. Electronic devices were stolen or damaged.
The Haitian Conference of Religious issued a statement strongly denouncing “the attacks on Church institutions, which are being looted and desecrated by heavily armed individuals who attack humble people that do nothing else but serve the entire population, especially the poorest.”
The conference expressed “deep pain” upon the “dizzying situation of chaos in which our beautiful people live today,” adding that it is “with indignation that we note how sons and daughters of the country attack private and state property without scruple and endanger the lives of others who seem to have no value in their eyes.”
The growing chaos in the Caribbean country, where criminal gangs have taken control over large portions of the capital city Port-au-Prince since the killing of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, has been affecting several segments of society.
The chronic lack of basic services and public security has been leading more and more Haitians to leave the country.
The crisis in the Caribbean nation, one of the poorest countries in the world, reached its apex on March 11, when Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation, after at least one week of coordinated attacks on governmental targets waged by criminal organisations.
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Catholic Church suffers from ‘dizzying chaos’ in Haiti (By Eduardo Campos Lima, OSV News)
