Haiti's Hunger Deepens

Another good article by Jonathan Katz.

Face of Peoria Catholic Diocese Changing

The Peoria Catholic Post editorial on June 15, 2008 was titled “Face of Diocese Changing”. The article focused on the massive amount of construction that is occurring within the Peoria Diocese.

“As the sounds of construction echo this summer heralding wonderful, anticipated projects such as expanded Catholic Newman Centers at the University of Illinois and Illinois State University, the Milestone Project at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, and the Diocese of Peoria’s own pastoral center, we have another reminder that everything in this world is passing.”

Tom Dermody, editor of the Catholic Post, ends his article with, “The true face of this diocese will always be Jesus, gloriously the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Who can disagree with this last statement but it just did not seem to go along with the article.

I am sure Tom means well. However, the Publisher of the Post is Bishop Daniel Jenky and Tom isn’t naive.

I think that the "face of Jesus" would have been more real if the OSF Milestone Project, which is costing about $500 million dollars, were less expensive and more Haitian Hearts patients were alive today. OSF is turning away dying Haitian children while they construct the largest private construction project in Peoria history.

Much of the same issue of the Catholic Post concerns the poor of the world and programs like Catholic Charities and JustFaith. There was also an article regarding a Peoria diocesan priest and his two children who he supports in Mexico through the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (“We don’t see poverty. We see potential".) I wonder what OSF would say if this good priest tried to bring one or both of his “children” from Mexico for medical care?

The actions of the leaders of the OSF and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria seem to be opposite to many of the themes of the articles written about the poor in the Catholic Post. That can leave the laity confused.
-------------------------------------

I love Peoria Notre Dame High School. My family runs on the beautiful Mervyn Haycock Athletic Field track and we pass the football on the adjacent green soccer field. Both of these fields are next to the school. The other night two rainbows were in the sky and the moon was coming above the ND goal post as we played on these fields.

The Catholic Post’s top story on June 22, 2008 regarded a feasibility study planned to determine the level of financial support for the construction of a new Peoria Notre Dame High School to be built on donated land off Willow Knolls Road in north Peoria.

Do we really need a new Catholic High School in Peoria? I realize that the high school is more than just athletic fields, but is a new campus necessary?

The full construction cost for the proposed new facility is $60 million dollars. Tuition will most likely go up at the new facility. What about kids in the future that want to go to Notre Dame. Will their parents be able to afford it? Will they be able to find the new school on the north side of Peoria?

The article named and quoted a lady who had a positive reaction to building a new school. Interestingly, the article also stated that, “A man in attendance who asked not to be named expressed concerns about fundraising in the present economy, and noted area parishes with capital campaigns already under way or planned in the near future.”

Why do you think that the man wished to remain anonymous? Because he doesn’t want to publicly disagree with Bishop Jenky and other powerful people. I am sure he thinks that the school will be built and his public disagreement or caution would and could hurt him and his family. (Notre Dame has been working with the diocese on this project and has the blessing of the bishop.)

I have no doubts either that the new high school will be built and there will be many good aspects. But is the greater good served in Peoria with the construction of this school?

I have also seen Saint Joseph’s Home on Heading Avenue open in the 50’s and close in the early 2000’s. Old people are just not viewed the same as constructing a new $60 million dollar high school, Newman Centers in two cities, and a one-half billion dollar medical center expansion. And the elderly obviously did not have the support of Bishop Jenky.

My view is probably myopic. But I have seen up close and personal what OSF’s administrative philosophy and expansion efforts, backed by the Catholic Diocese of Peoria, have done to Haitian Hearts patients. Staring at the body of a young Haitian patient and friend of mine lying on the autopsy table is a sobering experience and made me realize how powerful and wrong OSF really is. He had been a patient at OSF but was denied care at OSF when he needed repeat heart surgery.

And with the support of the Diocese, OSF has partially forgotten why they were founded 130 years ago.

So big building projects scare me especially when the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and OSF are involved.

Haiti's Child Slaves

Several years ago Haitian Hearts brought a 14 year old girl to the States for heart surgery. I will call her Fabianne.

Fabianne had two aunts. One aunt was good and the other aunt was bad. The bad aunt and had used Fabianne since she was much younger has a "domestek" in her home. Some would view Fabianne as a child slave.

Fabianne's jobs were to get up early, help her cousins get ready for school, prepare breakfast, and go to market.

Fabianne never attended school and did not know how to read and write.

During meal times, Fabianne had bread soup and sat under the table when she ate her soup. Bread soup consisted of water with specks of bread thrown in.

Her good aunt somehow got hold of Fabianne and took her to the doctor for unclear reasons. The doctor heard a heart murmur and said she needed further work up.

Fabianne's good aunt brought her to Haitian Hearts and we examined her. Her echocardiogram revealed that she had a leaky valve and needed heart surgery. We were able to bring her to a well known children's medical center in the United States.

Prior to surgery, a dental exam revealed carious and abscessed teeth. One tooth required extraction before surgery. Fabianne had never been to a dentist.

The night before surgery, Fabianne had concerned adults in her room that were sitting around worried about her and the dangerous surgery to occur the next day. Fabianne remarked that she was amazed that so many people cared about her.

Her surgery went well and after recuperation, she returned to her "good aunt" in Port-au-Prince.

There are many "Fabianne-type" stories in Haiti.

See article below.

--------------------------


Posted on Fri, Jul. 11, 2008
Free the Slaves Next Door
By DAN HARRIS


A few weeks ago I conducted a horrifying experiment. I tested how long it would
take to leave my office on Manhattan's Upper West Side and buy a child slave.
After a 45-minute cab ride, an hour-or-so wait at Kennedy airport and a 3
½-hour plane ride, I found myself engaged in broad-daylight, poolside
negotiations with a trafficker who said he was ready and eager to provide me
with a kid -- any age, either sex -- as soon as the next day. "I guarante e my
service," he said proudly.

The cost: $150. From start to finish, all it took was roughly 10 hours. This
casually grotesque conversation took place just 700 miles from Miami, in Haiti,
where there are an estimated 300,000 child slaves. There is a slavery epidemic
raging right under America's nose.

The hope is education.

While I had no intention of actually completing the purchase of a child, I was
able -- with astonishing ease -- to interview young slaves and their owners. As
I learned, the real scandal in Haiti is not that you can buy a child; it's that
you can get one for free. Child slavery has become a widespread and, to a
disturbing degree, socially acceptable practice. For generations, impoverished
parents from the countryside have given their children to families in the city,
in the hope that the children would be educated. (Public schools in Haiti,
especially in rural areas, are essentially nonexistent.)

"They dangle like a diamond necklace the promise of school," said E. Benjamin
Skinner, author of a new book on modern-day slavery, called A Crime So
Monstrous. (Skinner gave me the idea to see how long it would take to buy a
child slave.) Usually, however, the promise of education is not kept, and the
children are forced to do domestic labor. They are frequently beaten and raped,
according to human rights activists. When they get too old to be easily
controlled, they're often thrown out onto the streets.

It may not look like pre-Civil War, plantation-style slavery; there are no
legal, public auctions of humans. Thousands of Haitian children are, however,
"forced to work, through force or fraud, for no pay beyond subsistence," an
internationally recognized definition of modern-day slavery.

This epidemic of slavery (which is brutally ironic, given that Haiti is the
only republic in modern history to be founded on a slave revolt) is an
outgrowth not only of poverty (Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western
Hemisphere) but also of lax governance. When I brought the case of Ti Soeur, an
11-year-old slave with whip marks all over her arms, to the Haitian Department
of Social Services, officials promised to act "as early as possible." Days
later, they had taken no action and stopped returning phone calls.

What is the U.S. government doing about this? Not nearly enough, according to
Skinner. Congress did pass the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection
Act of 2000. The law requires the State Department to issue an annual report,
ranking the world's governments based on their efforts to fight slavery. The
worst are subject to sanctions. The most recent report came out two days after
I successfully negotiated for a child. While the State Department criticized
Haiti for not even having a law against human trafficking, it designated Haiti
as a "special case" because its government is in "political transition."

Ask the candidates.

Skinner and others in the modern abolitionist movement say that the U.S.
government has a moral obligation to be exponentially more aggressive in the
fight to free the estimated 27 million slaves around the world. (That is a
larger number, they say, than at any point in human history.)
As a news reporter, I prefer to be descriptive, not prescriptive. But I do have
one suggestion: Let's ask the presidential candidates what concrete steps they
plan to take on this issue. I recently checked how many times the candidates
were asked about modern-day slavery during the countless presidential debates.
Answer: zero.

The situation for Haiti's child slaves could not be more desperate. When I
asked a trafficker there whether there were any rules about how his customers
should treat the children he sells, he said, "It's yours, you do whate ver you
want."

Dan Harris is an anchor/reporter with ABC News. His report on child slavery
appeared on the news program Nightline earlier this week.


© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights
Reserved.http://www.miamiherald.com

Genocide in Haiti

In the late '90's I had the chance to meet with Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Mr. Aristide was between his two aborted presidencies of Haiti. Mrs. Aristide served us lemonade.

I told Mr. Aristide that I thought genocide was occuring in Haiti. My work in the medical field in Haiti led me to this belief.

I am not sure if I knew the offical definition of the word genocide like Samantha Power knows. But I am not sure if I really care either.

I have seen enough in Haiti to believe that genocide is probably not too inappropriate a term for a non academic like me to use.

See John Maxwell's ideas regarding Haiti and genocide.

Father Gerry Not a Candidate for President of Haiti

Before Father Jean-Juste's politically motivated arrest several years ago my wife Maria asked Father if he was going to be a candidate for President of Haiti in the upcoming election.

He responded, "Some people say that I am." That is all he said.

I want to know if Father broke a specific Catholic law regarding priests and political involvement that would bar him from acting as a priest now. If anyone has information regarding this, please let me know.

See this article regarding Father Gerry's latest statements regarding his "candidacy" and what he is going through now during his long sojourn for the Haitian people.

The Cry of the Motherless Child

I remember that beautiful morning when I woke up
Mama looked disturbed and Papa was gone
Hungry and helpless she wandered the room
I wish I had it all

She enlessly looked out the window hoping for a blessing
But Papa came empty handed
Hungry and weary they cried together
I wish I had it all

Mama loves me, Papa loves me
But love thrives not on hunger
How could the world be strong yet so helpless?
I wish I had it all

I cried and cried, oh yes I cried
I cried until my cry cried no more
But Mama just walked on
I wish I had it all

She turned and sobbed but just walked on
She wanted me to live
I cried for Papa but he walked straight on
I wish I had it all

I cried, I stretched out my arms but love filled them not
I wish I had Mama, I wish I had Papa
I would have had it all

Mama's beautiful smile fills my world with joy
Her sparkling white teeth a medicine to my pain
Her soft hands a tray of comfort
I wish I had it all

Her tireless lap a home to play
Her ample shoulders a place to sleep
Her protective arms a guide to safety
I wish I had it all

Happy lies the day when hunger hungers no more
When Mama and Papa worry no more
When we all will be one family again
Blessed is the day when Mama and Pap will be mine again.

(Written by Seminarian Paul Kala during his first visit to Haiti. Mr. Kala is from Ghana, on the west coast of Africa.)

No Water, No Peace

On Monday, June 23, 2008, the American Embassy officials in Port-au-Prince dedicated their new building. The new Embassy cost 75 million dollars and is located on 10 acres of land. It has its own state-of-the-art climate control and water treatment program.

The staff at the Embassy should work in a comfortable and safe environment. But so should millions of Haitians that have no "climate control" and 70% of Haitians have no access to potable water.

One thousand two hundred construction workers were used to build the American Embassy. I wonder how much they were paid per hour?

On the same day, the International Herald Tribune reported that 54 million dollars of loans by the Inter-American Development Bank was being held up by the United States government. (See article below.) The loans were intended to revamp part of Haiti’s water and sanitation projects.

Activists called the delay of these loans to the Haitian government "one of the most egregious examples of malfeasance by the United States in recent years."

------------------------------------------


Rights groups attack U.S. for withholding Haiti aid money
By Marc Lacey

Monday, June 23, 2008
An array of human rights groups has strongly criticized the United States government for withholding money meant to provide clean drinking water to Haiti as leverage for political change in the country.

The activists, in a report released Monday, called the delay of $54 million in international loans to the Haitian government "one of the most egregious examples of malfeasance by the United States in recent years."

The loans from the Inter-American Development Bank were intended to revamp the water and sanitation systems in Les Cayes and Port-de-Paix, two Haitian towns in dire need of the money to improve their infrastructure. In Haiti, close to 70 percent of the population lacks regular and direct access to potable water, experts say. The lack of clean water contributes to intestinal parasites and amoebic dysentery.

The development bank, over which the United States Treasury Department holds significant influence, approved the loans in 1998. Although payments began to be made several years later, the water projects have yet to be started, the report said, "largely the result of aggressive attempts by the U.S. government to block the disbursement of these loans."

Haiti's own political turmoil and financial difficulties also contributed to the delays, the report acknowledged.

The report was prepared by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the New York University School of Law; a Haiti-based health care provider called Partners in Health; the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights; and Zanmi Lasante, a Haitian advocacy group.

The groups went to court to get access to internal government correspondence explaining why the United States sought to prevent the approved loans from reaching Haiti in the years after their approval. The Inter-American Development Bank's charter says that the bank should not interfere in the political affairs of member countries.

But the delays in disbursing the loans were linked by American officials to their concerns about the administration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose first presidency was overthrown by a military coup in 1991 and whose return to power in 2001 was cut short three years later with the encouragement of the Bush administration.

Dean Curran, who was the American ambassador to Haiti at the time, said publicly in 2001, "There now are a certain number of loans of the Inter-American Development Bank that are not yet disbursed with the objective of trying to request of the protagonists of the current situation, in the current political crisis, to reach a compromise."

A top Treasury Department official then sent an e-mail message to staff members that called it a "major screwup" for the ambassador to explicitly acknowledge a connection between the holdup in development loans and American political concerns in Haiti.

Abandonment

Dear Bishop Jenky and OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center,

"We are guilty of many errors and faults,
but out worst crime is abandoning the children,
neglecting the fountain of youth.

Many things we need can wait.
The child cannot.

Right now his bones are being formed,
His blood is being made and his senses are being developed.

To him we cannot answer "Tomorrow".
His name is "Today".

---Gabriela Mistres,
Chilean Nobel Prizewinner

Charges Dropped Against Father Gerry

See Haitian Analysis article. Also see Miami Herald article from June 25.

As Father Gerry languished in a Haitian prison several years ago with leukemia, conveniently denied by a local Haitian doctor, the Catholic hierarchy in Haiti stripped Father of his duties as a priest.

Now the questions are will Father Gerry be allowed to function as a priest at Saint Clare's in Port-au-Prince? And will he be able to continue running his feeding program that feeds thousands each week as his Haitian brothers and sisters eat mud patties to stay alive?

Think of That...by Tonya Sneed

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 10:56 AM, Tonya Sneed wrote:

a friend from haiti
writes me about being hungry
i imagine that he is
about not having school fees for his son
i imagine that he doesn't
about his wife
wanting to start a little charcoal selling business
i imagine that she does
i think what it must be like
to be poor in haiti
where the price of spaghetti and rice has doubled
and here i sit
with so much power
i get to choose
to
help
or
not
how will i decide
maybe we'll go with my mood today
a flip of the coin
whether or not i feel
generous
or
stingy
or
merciful
or
suspicious
or
open
or
???
his hunger pains are
in my hands
think of that

(Pictured above is a doll in the pediatric clinic in Cite Soleil, Haiti. To the right is a "human mule" pulling sacks of charcoal, the remnants of Haiti's forests.)

Catholic Diocese of Peoria Ignores My Brother's Letters

My brother Tom wrote the Catholic Diocese of Peoria multiple times in the early 2000's. His letters were logical and Tom asked excellent questions.

Tom never received an answer to any letter from Bishop Daniel Jenky.

After watching Haitian children die terrible deaths in the last two years, Tom's letters proved to be prophetic.

My brother and I have a new understanding how the Catholic Church was able to keep the clergy sex abuse scandal quiet for so long. We have lived through the Diocese of Peoria's malignant silence over dying Haitian kids that they could have helped if they really wanted to.

See this letter written by Tom in 2003.

"Readers, I need your help...."

I have constructed a letter (below) to people in the Peoria area that may have influence with the policy makers at OSF.

If any of you have contacts with other medical centers around the U.S. that would consider operating on these girls, please notify me.

Pictured is Katina with her father. I will post pictures of Jenny and Heureuse also.

Thank you.

May, 2008

Dear ------------,

Since 1995, Haitian Hearts has brought over 125 babies, children, and young adults to the United States for surgery. Most of the surgery has been cardiac surgery. Haiti does not have the technology to consistently and reliably support cardiac patients who need sophisticated heart-lung bypass capabilities.

OSF accepted Haitian Hearts patients in the 1990’s and their young lives were made better with the skilled nurses, perfusionists, and physicians in Peoria.

OSF was following their mission statements while Haitian Hearts donated over 1.1 million dollars to OSF-Children's Hospital of Illinois for the medical care offered the Haitian children.

After I was fired from OSF in 2001, the medical center spokesperson informed the Peoria community that Haitian Hearts would continue even though I was terminated. However, in 2002, all funding from OSF for Haitian Hearts was stopped by OSF and the American Consulate in Haiti was notified by OSF to deny any further visas for Haitian Hearts children with cardiac conditions to come to Peoria’s OSF.

In 2003, I was notified by OSF’s legal counsel (Hinshaw-Culbertson) that OSF would not accept any further patients referred by me and this included Haitian Hearts patients. (I was notified again by the same lawyer in 2006 that OSF would continue their Haitian Hearts embargo.)

Unfortunately, two young Haitian men that were operated at OSF in the late 90’s and returned to Haiti, became ill in Haiti. I treated both in Haiti for extended periods of time but both needed further heart surgery to stay alive. Both were denied care at OSF in spite of the wishes of their local central Illinois host families and physicians that advocated for them.

Both patients died without heart surgery. Their Haitian and American families were devastated.

How could this happen?

Now I have three young women Heureuse, Jenny, and Katina that were operated at OSF. All need further heart surgery. If Heureuse dies, she will leave two children less than 5 years old in one of Haiti’s worst slums with no support. (Their father is dead.)

I have the girls on medications that Haitian Hearts brings to Haiti to keep them alive while they await surgery. They are in Haiti awaiting word from me now.

I have not been able to find other medical centers around the United States to accept these patients. Since they have been operated at OSF other medical centers believe that OSF should continue care for their patients. Many reasons are obvious why OSF should allow these girls to return to OSF.

Their Haitian families and American families are praying that OSF will make the beneficent decision for these girls.

Haitian Hearts can offer 5-10,000 dollars for the care of each girl. (A smaller charge by OSF will allow Haitian Hearts to bring further children to the United States.)

Last weeks issue of the Catholic Post in Peoria has two very timely quotes from Pope Benedict that OSF should read carefully:

“Within the community of believers, there can never be room for a poverty that denies anyone what is needed for a dignified life.”

“The responsibility of Christians to work for peace and justice, their irrevocable commitment to build up the common good, is inseparable from their mission to proclaim the gift of eternal life to which God has called every man and woman.”

I respectfully ask you to do all you can to convince OSF to allow their Haitian Hearts patients mentioned above to return to OSF, allow them to have surgery by Peoria’s specialists, and receive a new chance at life.

If you were these girls doctor, mother, or father, would you not be insisting that they receive the best care possible? The best care for them is right here in Peoria at OSF.

Please let me know.


Sincerely,

John Carroll, M.D.

haitianhearts@gmail.com

"Hellhole Haiti" not as Violent as Peoria

I have watched Haitians for 25 years.

I have seen them walk incredible distances up rocky mountain roads, carry their sick neighbors to the doctor on their shoulders, sit in immobile traffic crammed inside of large stagnant trucks, and find their baby's bed empty when they visited at the hospital.

Haitians are not near as anger prone or violent as Peorians.

The homicide rate in Peoria is about 15/100,000 per year.

The homicide rate in Port-au-Prince is about 5/100,000 per year.

Figure that out.

See the New Zeland Herald.

What is Required

"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is required."

Sir Winston Churchill

(Haitian Hearts patient Heureuse, holding her little girl. Heureuse is being denied repeat heart surgery by OSF-SFMC in Peoria and is contemplating her imminent death. When she is gone Heureuse will leave two little children alone in a slum in Port-au-Prince. She asked my wife and I if we would take her little girl.)

Let's Give a Hand to Them

Frandy is a teenager who lives in a slum of Port-au-Prince called Carrefour.

He goes to school and lives with his mother and a couple of brothers in a small "house" up a steep dirt hill in Carrefour.

He has an irrepressible spirit and writes us occasionally.

Here is Frandy's last e mail that he wanted posted on this web log. His English and spelling are not perfect, but neither is mine. (I did not try to correct his grammar...the only change I made was to divide his long paragraph into a few paragraphs.)

Frandy drives home his points ad nauseum, but why shouldn't he? He is living it.

Frandy even named this post: "Let's Give a Hand to Them".

Here it is:


Title : Let's give a hand to them

This is a bad moment for the Haitians. Most of the Haitians are hungry. Haiti needs the world to keep it from starving. Education is unaccessible for thousands children.

I think we should put hands together to help those who are in problems.(Education and medical care, food) are important to save thousands people here.

Once the children find education, they may take decision for their own lives after recieving instruction. We should struggle against violence in the slums here by helping the poor children to recieve education. Haiti needs school for the kids in all zones such as Cite soleil, Bel-Aire, Martissant and Raboto (Gonaives), Carrefour etc.

We are living in Technology and it requires school to catch a better life, we can not stay in a world where most of the children don't have oportunity to go to school and to eat.

The Haitian children are calling everyone because they don't want to carry guns anymore and they don't accept to be used by someone as slave. They are malnourished.

The Kids in Haiti are saying no to drug and no to prostitution and also no to gun and no to the illegal transportations in Dominican Republic. Stabilisation of Haiti depends on those specific matters "Education, Medical Care and Food. They are asking protection.

It says in the Bible "Anyone who receives the children, receives also the kingdom of God". We should give an eye on them.

Thank you very much for your understanding and may God bless you.


Haiti,

Frandy

Death Zone

The New York Times recently ran an article regarding Haiti’s food crisis. As the author walked through Cite Soleil he noted people making mud patties to eat. He noted that most of the “poorest of the poor suffer silently, too weak for activism or too busy raising the next generation of hungry”. The Times article ended with a young mother from Soleil offered one of her five children to the author and said, “Take one. You pick. Just feed them.”

After working in Haiti since 1981, being offered a child is almost an everyday experience. When I tell people at home that Haitian women frequently attempt to give their babies away, it is hard to believe. The quality of the Haitian mother can be questioned by people that have not been in Cite Soleil, but her offer of her child is a real act of love. She is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. She wants the child to live and is willing to give her child to someone she doesn't know while realizing that she will never see her child again.

Who can blame her?

Haitians have been hungry and malnourished for along time. With the recent press of Haitians eating mud patties and the food riots last week, the world has focused on Haiti and many other countries suffering similar circumstances—high food prices and not enough money.

The United States started selling Haiti rice in the mid 1980’s at prices much less than the Haitian farmer could sell his rice. So the Haitian farmer went out of business as irrigation systems became dysfunctional, fertilization of land became problematic, and the once rich Haitian countryside was allowed to deteriorate. It became necessary for Haiti to import 80% of its rice.

Farmers in the United States are making a huge surplus of rice today. But the price of rice has gone up for all of us, including Haitians, because of energy reasons. It costs more to get the rice from the U.S. to the hungry mouths waiting for it in Haiti. And Haitians can’t afford much.

To work in Haiti is truly an embarrassment for me. The vast majority of diseases that I see are brought on by poverty. And when people are poor, their water and food supply is inadequate. Parents have very little to give to their children. And their children become malnourished and enter the downward spiral…

With this latest crisis in Haiti, hundreds of people are fleeing Haiti’s shores for the United States. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. State Department warns Americans who are visiting Haiti about the “chronic danger of violent crime,” all the while repatriating Haitians to a “death zone”. President Preval of Haiti recently requested Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians who are unlawfully in the United States. TPS designations have been given to Somalia, Burundi, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Sudan. The last time Haiti applied for TPS was in 2004 and was denied for undisclosed reasons.

Obviously Haiti has to begin to produce enough of its own food again. President Rene Preval has lowered the price of “Miami” rice. The Haitian farmer needs a good price for fertilizer. Poor Haitians in the province need to be put to work repairing the irrigation systems. This would improve the fields, rice and other foods would grow, and Haitian women wouldn't be offering their starving babies to strangers.

Pope Benedict Challenges Catholics (and Catholic Bishops Too)

Pope Benedict came to the United States last week as a quiet but forceful critic of "an increasingly secular and materialistic culture". Almost any American who paid attention had to be uncomfortable because all of us are shaped by the very forces he was criticizing.

Benedict directly challenged an assumption that so many Americans make about religion: that it is a matter of private devotion with few public implications.

Not true, said the pope. "Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted," he told the country's Catholic bishops. "Only when their faith permeates every aspect of their lives do Christians become truly open to the transforming power of the Gospel."

Was Bishop Jenky listening when Benedict asked a pointed question: "Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contadict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death?"

A few years ago Bishop Jenky did ignore poor Haitians with heart problems and allowed OSF and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria to dismiss Haitian Hearts. My brother asked Bishop Jenky (with Sister Judith Ann present at the meeting) if I could go to Haiti and bring back a few kids for cardiac surgery. He replied no, Sister Judith Ann made no response, and then at a different meeting, Bishop Jenky told me that I would be responsible for the deaths of Haitian children if I petitioned for a Tribunal (Canon Law) Court against OSF regarding their medical negligence in several areas. Bishop Jenky simply concluded that he would not "judge against OSF" in a Tribunal Court.

I think that Bishop Jenky feared the "secular and materialistic culture" in Peoria and what they would do to the Catholic Diocese of Peoria if he challenged OSF in any way. I believe Bishop Jenky disagrees with much of what OSF does, but fears them greatly. So he decided that Haitian kids would take the heat and hardly any one up here would really know or care.

Since that time, a number of Haitian kids with heart defects have died, many are suffering and slowly dying now, and Haitians en masse are starving and drowning at sea when they attempt to escape Haiti's misery.

I doubt Benedict would be pleased with Bishop Jenky or our large opulent Catholic medical center in Peoria and our "Catholic culture" regarding Haiti's poor.

(From E.J.Dionne's editorial with my interposed comments. Picture of Jackson Jean-Baptiste in cardiogenic shock. Jackson had heart surgery at OSF, returned to Haiti, became ill in Haiti, and was refused further care by OSF. Jackson died seven weeks after photo at the age of 21.)

We Starve 'Em and Then We Drown 'Em

20 Bodies Found in Sea Near Bahamas
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:31 p.m. ET

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) -- The bodies of 20 Haitians have been recovered from the sea near the Bahamas after their boat capsized, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday as it searched for survivors.

Three survivors -- two Haitians and one Honduran -- have been found, said Barry Bena, a Coast Guard spokesman in Miami. Coast Guard Petty Officer Jennifer Johnson said all 20 whose bodies were recovered were Haitian, correcting an initial report that one was Honduran.

The survivors said their boat was carrying 24 people when it capsized around 10 p.m. Saturday, according to another Coast Guard spokesman, Luis Diaz.
The search-and-rescue mission began Sunday after fishermen heard people screaming in the water before dawn.

The accident happened about 15 miles (25 kilometers) northwest of Nassau, Bahamas, according to the Coast Guard. A cutter, helicopter and a jet from the Coast Guard and two Bahamas military vessels continued searching the area Monday.
Diaz said the Bahamian government was holding the survivors.

Every year, thousands of Haitians try to leave the Western Hemisphere's poorest country aboard rickety, overloaded boats for other islands or the United States.
Soaring food prices have pushed many into abject poverty and triggered riots earlier this month in Haiti, but this has not translated so far into a spike in the number of migrants.

Last year a migrant boat capsized near the Turks and Caicos islands, pitching Haitians into shark-infested waters. At least 61 people died.

Peaceful Revolution

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

John F. Kennedy
1963

The Riverside Speech

"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation."

Martin Luther King
April, 1968