Archbishop of Port Au Prince, Haiti dies in Earthquake

The Church has always had to pay a price as part of human society.  News has reached us of the death of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot of the Port au Prince archdiocese in Haiti, who was found dead in the rubbles of his ruined archdiocesan office.  He died leading and sharing the fate of his suffering flock and country men and women, especially those faithful so terribly affected.
At the moment, it seems many priests and seminarians are still missing or in ruined rubbles. Our heart reaches out to them and we continue to keep them in our prayers. 
Haiti, home to about 9 million people of mainly African descent is a poor country within the western hemisphere. In its culture and religious heritage it continues to display and manifest African cultural identities and legacies of its connection to the African continent.
We pray for the repose of the dead and especially the archbishop and members of the church of Haiti, so terribly affected.

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The Times of India
Indiatimes Web (by Google) Video Photos

Archbishop of Port-au-Prince dies in Haiti earthquake

AP, 14 January 2010, 03:06am
Topics:Haiti

PARIS: Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, has been killed in the Haiti earthquake. He was 63.

Missionaries at the archdiocese found his body crushed by rubble in the ruins of his office, said the Rev Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Centre in western France.

A seminary student was killed and two others were injured in the quake, according to the mission.
The Saint Jacques order of missionary priests was officially founded in 1951 by the bishop of Gonaives, Haiti. While headquartered in France, it retains a strong presence in Haiti and traces its unofficial missionary activity to 1860.

Born in Jeremie, Haiti, on November 23, 1946, Miot was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1975.

He was consecrated a bishop in 1997, and named deputy to the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, a title he held until being named archbishop himself in 2008.

"He was a demanding, and understanding, priest," said the Rev Michel Menard, also of the Saint Jacques mission, who met regularly with Miot in Haiti. "He was man of great discretion and humility."
"He was very close to his priests, very welcoming," and his door was always open to visitors, Menard said.
Miot, a philosophy professor at the Port-au-Prince seminary, "would tell students that being a priest is not a profession, it is a mission," Menard told AP by phone from the Brittany town of Landivisiau.