Haiti: Religious Congregations Count their losses After Quake

Haiti's capital was served by 277 priests, 387 men religious and 1,200 women religious.

ROME (CISA) - The Pontifical Mission Societies has reported huge losses following the catastrophe in Haiti of an earthquake that killed at least 100,000 people.

According to Fides, the news agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies transmitted reports it has received from representatives of the various missionary groups.

The Montfort Missionaries lost 9 seminarians and one priest. Three sisters from that spiritual family, of the Congregation of Daughters of Wisdom, also passed away. Three others are still trapped under the rubble.

The Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Haiti have about 130 members. One seminarian was killed along with the nine Montforians.

The Congregation of the Holy Ghost lost one seminarian.

The Christian Brothers (with 15 working in Haiti) reported no deaths or injuries. There was slight damage to its novitiate, which has been converted into a shelter for nuns who were left homeless.

None of the 41 Redemptorist fathers or brothers was killed; only one was wounded. However damage to their property estimated at $2 million.

The seven Dominican men religious also escaped unharmed. The Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin sustained one injured sister; one of their two homes was completely destroyed. One of the children of their school was killed.

The 49 Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary all survived.

The five Camillian seminarians escaped unharmed.

The Salesians reported about the collapse of a school that buried 200 students and the religious working there. The bodies of two Salesian seminarians have been found.

Jesuits reported little damage and no lives lost; just one priest was injured.

The Franciscans also reported that their 16 brothers are alive. However, an Argentinean priest of the order, who worked as a missionary in Haiti for the past two years, is among those who disappeared in the earthquake, his brother reported on a local television station.

According to 2004 statistics, the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince had some 2.5 million Catholics, which is 74 percent of the total population. Haiti's capital was served by 277 priests, 387 men religious and 1,200 women religious.

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Republished by Catholic Online with permission of the Catholic Information Service for Africa (CISA), based in Nairobi, Kenya (www.cisanewsafrica.org).