Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Haiti: The Society and Its Environment
practitioners. Catholic clergy have not been consistently militant
in opposing voodoo, and they have not been successful in
eradicating or diminishing the popular religious practices of
the rural and urban poor. The clergy have generally directed
their energies more toward educating the urban population
than eradicating voodoo. Since the 1970s, the use of drum
music has become common in Roman Catholic services. Incorporating
folk elements into the liturgy, however, did not mean
the Roman Catholic Church's attitude toward voodoo had
changed.
Nationalists and others came to resent the Roman Catholic
Church in the 1940s and 1950s because of its European orientation
and alliance with the mulatto elite. Francois Duvalier
opposed the church more than any other Haitian president.
Between 1959 and 1961, he expelled the archbishop of Port-au-
Prince, the Jesuit order, and numerous priests. In response to
these moves, the Vatican excommunicated Duvalier. When
relations with the church were restored in 1966, Duvalier prevailed.
He succeeded for the first time in having a Haitian
named an archbishop and also gained the right to nominate
bishops.
The mid-1980s marked a profound change in the church's
stance on issues related to peasants and the urban poor.
Reflecting this change was the statement by Pope John Paul II
during a visit to Haiti in 1983 that "things must change here."
Galvanized by the Vatican's concern, Roman Catholic clergy
and lay workers called for improved human rights. Lay workers
fostered an emerging peasant rights movement. The Roman
Catholic radio station, Radio Soleil, played a key role in disseminating
news in Creole about government actions during the
1985-86 crisis and encouraged opponents of the Duvalier government.
The bishops, particularly in Jeremie and Cap-Haitien,
actively denounced Duvalierist repression and humanrights
violations.
In the aftermath of Jean-Claude Duvalier's departure in
1986, the church took a less active role in Haitian politics. The
church hierarchy, however, strongly supported the 1987 constitution
that granted official status to Creole and guaranteed
basic human rights, including the right to practice voodoo.
The alliance with the lower classes in the 1980s left the Roman
Catholic Church internally divided in the late 1990s. These
divisions reflect in part the church hierarchy's ambivalent relationship
to the political movement it supported in the 1980s,
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