Jean-Bertrand Aristide - Early Life and Church Career

Early Life and Church Career

Aristide was born into poverty in Port-Salut, Sud Department. His father died when Aristide was only three months old, and Aristide moved to Port-au-Prince with his mother, seeking a better life for him. In 1958, Aristide started school with priests of the Salesian order. He was educated at the College Notre Dame in Cap-Haïtien, graduating with honors in 1974. He then took a course of novitiate studies in La Vega, Dominican Republic before returning to Haiti to study philosophy at the Grand Seminaire Notre Dame and psychology at the State University of Haiti. After completing his post-graduate studies in 1979, Aristide traveled in Europe, studying in Italy, Greece, and Israel. He returned to Haiti in 1982 for his ordination as a Salesian priest, and was appointed curate of a small parish in Port-au-Prince.

Throughout the first three decades of Aristide's life, Haiti was ruled by the family dictatorships of François "Papa Doc" and Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. The misery endured by Haiti's poor made a deep impression on Aristide, and he became an outspoken critic of Duvalierism. Nor did he spare the hierarchy of the country's church, since a 1966 Vatican Concordat granted Duvalier the power to appoint Haiti's bishops. An exponent of liberation theology, Aristide denounced Duvalier's regime in one of his earliest sermons. This did not go unnoticed by the regime's top echelons. Under pressure, the provincial delegate of the Salesian Order sent Aristide into three years of exile in Montreal. By 1985, as popular opposition to Duvalier's regime grew, Aristide was back preaching in Haiti. His Easter Week sermon, "A Call to Holiness," delivered at the cathedral of Port-au-Prince and later broadcast throughout Haiti, proclaimed, "The path of those Haitians who reject the regime is the path of righteousness and love."

Aristide became a leading figure in the ""ti legliz movement"" – Kreyòl for "little church." In September 1985, he was appointed to St. Jean Bosco church, in a poor neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. Struck by the absence of young people in the church, Aristide began to organize youth, sponsoring weekly youth masses. He founded an orphanage for urban street children in 1986 called Lafanmi Selavi . Its program sought to be a model of participatory democracy for the children it served. As Aristide became a leading voice for the aspirations of Haiti's dispossessed, he inevitably became a target for attack. He survived at least four assassination attempts. The most widely publicized attempt, the St Jean Bosco massacre, occurred on 11 September 1988, when over one hundred armed Tonton Macoute wearing red armbands forced their way into St. Jean Bosco as Aristide began Sunday mass. As Army troops and police stood by, the men fired machine guns at the congregation and attacked fleeing parishioners with machetes. Aristide's church was burned to the ground. Thirteen people are reported to have been killed, and 77 wounded. Aristide survived and went into hiding.

Subsequently, Salesian officials ordered Aristide to leave Haiti, but tens of thousands of Haitians protested, blocking his access to the airport. In December 1988, Aristide was expelled from his Salesian order. A statement prepared in Rome called the priest's political activities an "incitement to hatred and violence," out of line with his role as a clergyman. Aristide appealed the decision, saying: "The crime of which I stand accused is the crime of preaching food for all men and women." In a January 1988 interview, he said "The solution is revolution, first in the spirit of the gospel; Jesus could not accept people going hungry. It is a conflict between classes, rich and poor. My role is to preach and organize...." In 1994, Aristide left priesthood, ending years of tension with the church over his criticism of its hierarchy and his espousal of liberation theology. The following year, Aristide married Mildred Trouillot, with whom he had two daughters.