26670: Nlbo: (Comments)Thanking the Haitian Nuns on Thanksgiving (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Nlbo@aol.com

I am not quite certain where and how the following note relates to
Thanksgiving. But I feel I need to express my gratitude to all Haitian  nuns since I
have been getting so many e-mails wishing Happy birthday to Father X or Happy
silver or 20th anniversary to Father Y( I wish I could translate, PÃ kesekwÃt, PÃ
kesedjo in English).

I understand itâs not the month of May, or March, but we always say in March
that women should be celebrated throughout the year. Letâs  practice today
what we hear in March. I would like to say Happy Birthday, Happy anniversaries to
all the nuns in Haiti! During the Thanksgiving season, I want to recognize
all the nuns and educators in the primary education area.

Please share these words with Haitian nuns  since many of them are not in the
internet.

Over the years, I have received invitations to pray, to participate in
anniversaries or ordinations of priests which I really appreciate and the priests
who know me well know  I like  like them too, especially those whom I see Jesus
through their practices. On the other hand,  as the internet provides a more
rapid way to get those invitations, the last anniversary invitation I got
recently and even a sermon I received last week and a birthday wish to a priest
today prompted me to think about the Haitian nuns who have worked so hard, but
have not gotten enough words of gratitude or priviledges like study and work
overseas like the priests. Here are my words for the Haitian nuns, the Sunday
school teachers, the Haitian elementary school teachers, and of course the
mothers who have raised those priests or pastors.

 Without the female religious who had provided  the privileged of us an early
education in Haiti, we would not have known how to read and write. Many
unfortunate Haitians, from the small towns or the provinces who canât and could not
go to P-au-Prince to finish their education, have only obtained a â
certificatâ (an 8th grade education) by the nuns. We should be thankful to those
religious women  while working to help all Haitians  men and women to be more
educated.

I would like to mention Sister Carmel, Sister Marcel,Sister Elza,  Sister
Cecile in New York, Soeur JeanBaptiste, Soeur Bernadette, Soeur Agnes,Soeur Donna
in Haiti, Sister Tess, Sister Precious, Sister Meg in Boston and all those
nuns whose names I forgot and are working on a daily basis with orphans, AIDS
patients, who work in the hospitals, in prisons, who are teaching in the schools
in P-au-Prince, the provinces, and the country sides or helping in whatever
capacity the poorest of the poor. THANK YOU!

Though many of us had received our primary education from the religious
women, the Haitian nuns are not as privileged as the priests. They have not
received that much education and all those educational and social privileges the
priests get. How many of us had Haitian priests or brothers as elementary teachers
or teachers in general if we are not in the seminaries? Or for those of us
church people, how many of them teach us or how often do we see them with our
problems once we leave church on Sundays or after the charismatic nights? How
many of those priests are teaching even catechism to the children?  In the
diaspora, we can count on our fingers, the priests who are  genuinely available to
the Haitian people in their daily lives, 24/7 after the Sunday masses. How
many of today's generations of Haitian priests  can we compare to Father Adrien,
Father Smart, Father Jean Dominique, Msgr.Sansaricq, Father Jean Juste, or
former priests like Paul Dejean who passed away Monday?

Imagine the long hours that those Haitian religious women spent teaching us
at the elementary level. The West had started recently asking that nuns have a
college degree to be consecrated or even to enter a convent. In Haiti, forget
it. Some of the nuns are nurses. But most of them probably did brevet (high
school equivalency if not less). The Haitian nuns  hardly have theological
training. Though a school of theology (CIFO) opened for lay people about five years
ago in P -au-Prince, the last I heard women including the nuns were not allow
ed to attend that school. By lay people , only religious brothers (Les Freres)
were allowed to participate in that theological program. Most of what the
Haitian nuns have received is the tradition, the principles, the tenets, and the
history of their founder(s) and some Roman Catholic dogma.

Africa had begun to send their nuns over seas (in the West) to study. I have
not yet met Haitian nuns in higher institutions in the East Coast. Except for
the handful of Haitian nuns in New York, and Sister Donna I saw once,I have
not met Haitian nuns in conferences either. As I think of the training of those
nuns who have educated most of us who supposedly went to âgood schoolsâ in
Haiti, they have done a good job.

For those of you who saw  Black Catholic historian, Father Cyprian Davis,
last June in the National Apostolate conference in Virginia, I wasnât there, but
I hope he had mentioned a Black Catholic parish that survived forty(40) years
in Florida without priests. The Catholic church of Haiti had survived from l
789 or from the time of the slave uprisings to 1860 until the Concordat
basically without priests,nuns,or any structured system of church governance that we
experience today. However, no society can function efficiently without 40 to
60 years of basic, primary education.  Letâs say Thank you to all the Haitian
nuns and other educators who have provided us a basic education that allowed
many Haitians to continue their education, be priests or enter other privileged
professions. Letâs find out their next 20th, silver, golden, anniversaries
and even birthdates and recognize and celebrate their efforts, though I firmly
believe the best way to recognize someone is surprising him/her on no
particular occasion.

Imagine  what the world will be without the female elementary teachers, the
nuns in Christian cultures, the Sunday Bible school teachers in Protestant
settings. Imagine if  Haitian women have been learning or if the priests  or
pastors have been teaching the women throughout our lives , how different Haitian
womenâs lives or Haitian childrenâs will be.

As I said before, this is the Information Age,  Haitian women raising the men
should strive to be informed so we can teach and pass on our culture and
heritage. As Christians and disciples of Christ, every body, male or female, Jews
or Gentiles, freed or slave is called to follow and learn Jesusâs teachings
and practices. Yet the Catholic church needs more priests and more religious
vocations. The Haitian diaspora needs more clergy raised and or educated in the
West. The majority of the priests and pastors  being brought from Haiti can not
navigate this western society and minister to Haitians who were born or
educated in the US. The Haitian churches need an intergenerational pastorate - a
training that the Haitian Protestant or Catholic did not get in Haiti. Except
for a few parishes in Long Island, Queens , some in Brooklyn and some members in
Notre Dame d'Haiti, many Haitian churches outside of Haiti be it Catholic or
Protestant  remain a church frequented by  the working class Haitians. The
Haitian churches have not been able to provide for the spiritual needs of US
educated Haitians and attract second generations of Haitians born in the U.S. both
are a group of people who can really be a great asset to the Haitian
community and its churches.

However, I firmly believe to have more priests and vocations, in the Haitian
milieu for this purpose, we have to teach the faith to the women who are
raising the boys and girls who will enter religious life. For Haitian Catholic
women in the United States, it is even more important to learn the Catholic faith
since women doing theology or involve in professional ministry training in the
west outnumber ten times or more the number of men in seminaries -21,000 to
35,000 women in theological in the past five years, compare a little over 3,
000 men in seminaries in the US). Haitian women need to be able to function
(compete) intellectually and professionally with their U. S church goers or lay
ministers. Are the priests preparing the Haitian women as "discipleships of
equals"  in the universal church?"

A Big Thanks to all Haitian and foreign nuns  who have built the foundation
of our education  that allowed us to pursue further learning.

Sincerely,

Happy Thanksgiving to all

Nekita