Father Richard Frechette--"Haiti, The God of Tough Places, The Lord of Burnt Men"--Part VI--June 18, 2025
Father Rick Frechette
Keeping Sabbath (A Summer Chronicle)
September 11, 2006
Most sin is the perversion of something good. Hatred is a perversion of love. Jealousy is a perversion of appreciation of differences. Revenge is a perversion of justice. That is why there is hope for us sinners. The basic stuff for something very right is still there, it has just gone very wrong. But it is still there and can be reworked with God’s grace. In the end, everything comes down to this: when the heart is perverted there is suffering and death. When the heart is righteous and free there is life, even forever. But how to rework the heart!
Gangs are perversions of families. It is evident that gangs give a feeling of belonging and a feeling of power to the lost and disconnected and powerless. Many of the people that I know in gangs can be led to do the right thing, even at financial loss. What is right in their hearts needs to be recovered. This is hard to do when bitterness and vengeance have built up over the many unspeakable assaults and crimes. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is leading the national reconciliation of South Africa based on this idea. We need to stop, to forgive, and to recover the best of the human heart in everyone.
When I spoke with the five main gang leaders over the past weeks, asking what they thought about Preval’s statement that he would kill any bandits that did not disarm, their answer was surprising. They said they agreed, Preval should kill the bandits. They do not see themselves as bandits, but as revolutionaries, trying to better the life of the poor.
Maybe good people always underestimate their goodness, and bad people always underestimate their badness. In the end, everyone has a good measure of both, wild or contained, and to seek ongoing redemption through a long walk with a mysterious God is not a bad goal.
Gandhi’s nonviolent way of change the world, was born a hundred years ago today. Terrorists attacked the United States five years ago today, and attack many others around the world every day. The passion for God can unleash angelic or demonic forces. It all depends on us.
Tomorrow is once again slated for disarmament in the slums of Haiti. Let’s pray it is a dream that comes true. Then I can return to being a priest and physician, and abandon my stint as the kidnapper-whisperer.
—
John Carroll
2025
In 2005, with a delegation from the United States and under the supervision of Fr. Tom Hagan (who would later baptize Luke), we met with gang members in the back part of Cite Soleil.
We sat around a big table in an empty building and drank room-temperature Coke.
The thing I remember most from this meeting is that the gang members said they wanted jobs to allow them to feed their families. And they said that jobs would stop the kidnapping and the mayhem that was victimizing all of Haiti.
—
John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org