World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay sent a pastoral letter to Haitian brothers and sisters whose lives are lived in a land with hatred, violence, and suffering. “Although we might be physically distant, we are close to you in heart, in the spiritual sense,” wrote Pillay. “We all are children of God. We belong to one family, as Jesus Christ himself said.”
With an intervention delivered by Max Weber, a student at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, the World Council of Churches expressed deep concern for human rights in Haiti.
As reports of casualties and loss grow in Haiti in the wake of a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on 14 August, a tropical depression was threatening the same area two days later.
The World Council of Churches reached out to churches in Haiti in a letter to express solidarity and prayerful concern in the wake of the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse, and amid ongoing waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A court decision in the Dominican Republic annulling the citizenship of an estimated 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian ancestry has been strongly criticized by church leaders, including the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.