Remembering Father Gerry

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

Fr. Gerry worked tirelessly for the less fortunate, was the first Haitian ordained a priest by the US Catholic Church, and according to attorney Ira Kurzban who represented his Miami-based Haitian Refugee Center:

"He was a person who spent his whole life committed to justice for the poor" despite being harassed, intimidated, falsely charged with murder, illegally possessing weapons and conspiracy, and jailed twice by the US-installed Latortue government. Then in December 2005, he was diagnosed with leukemia in prison.

Medical anthropologist, healer, humanitarian, co-founder of Partners in Health to treat the poor, and board member of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti Dr. Paul Farmer broke the news at the time saying:

"I visited Father Gerry just before Christmas because I had heard reports that his health was deteriorating...I examined him, obtained the necessary specimens and brought them to the laboratory. When his neck first began to swell some months ago, he thought it was due to a beating he'd received in jail. But the swelling on both sides of his neck increased, followed by fatigue and swollen lymph nodes elsewhere."

"A definitive diagnosis is in: Father Gerry has (what later was confirmed as chronic lymphocytic leukemia). So he is not only a prisoner of conscience, one of hundreds in Haiti, but a sick prisoner who needs more than prayers and letters of support. He needs proper medical care and, probably chemotherapy," hard to get anywhere in Haiti and impossible "in a Haitian prison." Farmer said his symptoms were progressing rapidly, could damage his immune system, would make him susceptible to common prison infections and diseases, and might end up killing him.

On October 13, 2004, Haitian police arrested him while feeding hungry children in his parish on charges of being "a threat to public order," or in other words no charges, so they made one up. After several weeks, he was released following outcries from supporters, but it was only the beginning of his ordeal.

In July 2005, he was arrested again on charges of murdering journalist Jacques Roche even though he was out of the country at the time of the killing. On July 28, Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience, its highest honor. On January 26, 2006, the murder charges were dropped, but he was indicted on illegal weapons possession and conspiracy.
Then on January 29, he was provisionally released on humanitarian grounds to receive proper medical care in Miami.

On September 11, 2006, the University of San Francisco awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his human rights and social justice work. On November 26, 2007, the Port-au-Prince Court of Appeals heard challenges to his illegal weapons and conspiracy charges but declined to dismiss them, even though the prosecutor said no evidence existed.

Finally, in June 2008, the remaining charges were dropped. All were bogus and intended only to intimidate and harass, disrupt his social justice work, and remove a persistent thorn - a beloved humanitarian and champion of the poor from continuing his work and speaking forcefully against what former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune called Haiti's "political machine of injustice" and all forms of violence.

In September 2005, Port-au-Prince's archbishop Joseph Serge Miot suspended Fr. Gerry from his parish duties at the city's St. Claire Catholic Church on grounds he might run for president, something the Vatican prohibits. Jean-Juste was in prison at the time, couldn't register if he considered running, and immediately appealed. The Vatican, however, supported Miot. The suspension remained, and likely it was less about politics than the Liberation Theology Fr. Gerry practiced.

Rome has long supported some of the most repressive dictators globally. In Haiti also even though it excommunicated Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier in 1959 for expelling clergy critical of his rule. However, in 1966, Pope Paul IV capitulated, reversed the excommunication, and gave Duvalier veto power over Haitian clerical appointments.

The Vatican hardly notices what Haitians now endure, their deep poverty and deprivation, and how oppressively Washington-backed governments treat them. Only humanitarian opposition engenders its ire, the kind no one practiced better than Fr. Gerry.

He was born in Cavaillon, Haiti in 1947, grew up in Les Cayes in the Southeast, studied for the priesthood in Canada, was ordained in 1971, then returned to Haiti to minister to the poor. After refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier government later in 1971, he came to America, worked at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, and earned two degrees from Northeastern University - in engineering technology in 1974 and civil engineering in 1977.

In 1979, he co-founded the Miami Haitian Refugee Center to help thousands of Haiti's poor find asylum in America from repression and deep poverty at home. International law protects them, but it hardly mattered then or now.

Being poor and black, Haitians aren't wanted so they're denied the same rights afforded more favored immigrants like Europeans and Cubans. They're rounded up on arrival, denied refuge, placed in detention under deplorable conditions, and treated like criminals before most often being deported back home. Fr. Gerry worked tirelessly on their behalf and against America's discriminatory immigration policies. In 1980, he told the Miami Herald:

"Haitian people had no rights in Haiti, and they have no rights here. They are starving, they are being separated from their families, they cannot work."

1 | 2 | 3

I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.