15418: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Thousands turn out at Haitian conference to ward off (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami Herald

Posted on Mon, Apr. 28, 2003

Thousands turn out at Haitian conference to ward off forces of evil
BY MICHAEL NORTON
Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Some 90,000 Haitians crowded under canopies and parasols
Sunday, praying for miracles to cure the physical, economic and political
ills that are bedeviling their nation.

Only carnival festivities attract more people than the annual Catholic
Charismatic Conference in the Caribbean nation of eight million who are
among the world's poorest, in large part because of 20 years of political
instability.

''Down with Satan!'' a Trinidadian priest, the 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 arms in
unison, invoking the Holy Spirit to defeat the powers of darkness.

Traditionally religious Haitians, with the biggest followings from the
Protestant Pentecostal movement and a homegrown Vodou fusion of West African
and Roman Catholic beliefs, are turning in increasing numbers to the gods as
their misery deepens.

Many Pentecostal and Vodou adherents were among the crowd at the three-day
Roman Catholic meeting that ended Sunday.

''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 people
who thronged the grounds of St. Louis de Gonzague School in suburban Delmas.

A dramatic hush took hold when a priest called for silence in respect for
the Eucharist at that moment when Catholics believe that bread and wine are
miraculously transformed into the body and blood of Christ.

Some fell into trances, others pleaded for cures for physical ailments and
handicaps.

Some just asked for a little money to help survive.

Dozens raised Haitian passports to heaven and prayed that U.S. consular
officers would be compassionate and grant them the visas they consider a
passport to a better life.

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



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