Haiti . . . News of The Assassination of Fr. Jean Marie Vincent
The Assassination of Fr. Jean Marie Vincent
T he Congregation of the Montfort Fathers and Brothers is plunged into mourning and dismay. Our brother, Father Jean-Marie Vincent, was brutally assassinated Sunday, 28 August 1994, around 8:00 p.m. by repressive forces in our country. His death resembles that of so many outcasts, the poor wretches coldly and cowardly slaughtered every night in the poor neighborhoods. According to certain reports, a car was parked for more than an hour in front of the driveway of our religious house, keeping a lookout for his return. Upon his arrival, he was hit with a burst of gun-fire which immediately took his life.
The Congregation of the Montfort Fathers and Brothers has discovered all the indications of a crime that was ordered. While other corpses remain abandoned in place for many hours, the body of Jean-Marie was immediately taken up and transported “for an autopsy” at the morgue of the General Hospital, despite the protests of the members of the community. The vehicle that he was driving was also taken away. It was staggering to see immediately deployed, on a Sunday, already quite late in the evening, without so much as a phone call to alert anyone, the whole apparatus of the army, the judiciary, the justice of the peace, members of the anti-gang unit, the police, and even ambulances.
We denounce this odious crime and the strange series of events which accompanied it. In our eyes, only our brother’s thirst for justice, his ardent service on behalf of the excluded and those cast aside, can explain his assassination. It surely comes from all those who are opposed to change in our country. The enemies of change wanted to kill the dreams of the poor peasants of our country, for whom Jean-Marie was councilor and animator, empowering them by his work for Caritas in Cap-Haitian. We Montfortian Religious are ready to carry this case before the International High Court of Justice if every light is not brought to bear on the assassination of our confrere.
Fr. Alphonse Quesnel, S.M.M.
Provincial Superior of the
Montfort Congregation in Haiti
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Fr. Jean-Marie Vincent, SMM
In solidarity with the entire Montfort Community, with the people of Haiti and all those affected by the death of Fr. Jean Marie, we strongly denounce the deterioration of the human rights situation in Haiti, and demand that the government authorities conduct a thorough investigation into the murder, bring to justice all those who are responsible for it and ensure that the basic rights of the people are safe-guarded.
Commission Justice and Peace
Word From Father General
Friday, September 2nd, the CNN evening news showed the funeral liturgy of our confrere, Jean- Marie Vincent. He was peacefully laid to rest in white vestments, amid incense and signs of respect, just a few meters from where he had been assassinated in a hail of bullets and blood. The following day, Saturday, I went to pray at the tomb of Saint Peter. I asked Peter, apostle and martyr, to protect our Montfortian Family in Haiti, and to make Fr. Jean-Marie a rock to strengthen the faith of all his brothers and sisters in the struggle for justice.
In truth thousands are killed around the world each day, and confreres and those whom they serve suffer immensely on every continent and make their Passover to God. Too, Jean-Marie shared our fragile humanity and the path of conversion. Nevertheless, I believe that as the Company of Mary we must pause to reflect on what has happened among us since the assassination of Jean-Marie on August 28th. This event marks the history of the Congregation. Although in Latin America killing Priests is often used as a tool of terror and repression, Jean-Marie was the first priest murdered in Haiti; the climate of violence and lawlessness now mounts against everyone. Jean-Marie joins the ranks of the martyrs of the Company of Mary.
However the event also marks our history because of the intense, palpable solidarity of prayer and action that it created among us. By means of fax, telephone and television – but most. of all by compassion and love the Montfortian Family and countless others around the world united with the Community in Haiti. The murder of Jean-Marie gave the Company of Mary an experience of union of mind and heart from Papua to Belgium to Port-au-Prince, from Montreal to Washington to St. Laurent.
“Within the Church we form a community in which all are brothers, all bear one another’s burdens. We are gathered together in Christ, and even with our differences of origin, background, culture, by our life together as brothers we put into effect what the Kingdom of Christ inaugurated on earth; the union of all through faith in Christ Jesus”. (Const. 72).
The Confreres in Haiti will continue their lives, and we must remain in active support of them. The rest of the Congregation will continue the rhythm of life: professions, ministries, illnesses, deaths. Hopefully we will live our Consecration and live as Apostles of the Last Times. But pay attention to what was achieved among us by the death of Jean-Marie – a solidarity, a union of mind and heart, a concerted action for the Reign of God and its justice, a witness to the power and immediacy of Montfort as a prophet and preacher of the nearness of Love. Pay attention to the solidarity achieved among us. It happened once – it can and must happen over and over again as together we face the challenges of mission, vocations, formation, and sharing Montfortian spirituality.
I leave you with the prayer that what was true for Jean-Marie might be true for each one of us: “Our consecration to Christ through Mary is a school of availability, where we learn to place ourselves side by side with the very poor. Thus we enter into the very movement which brought Wisdom to unite himself to our human condition by his Incarnation . . . This real sharing must go as far as a solidarity with and sharing in the lot of the poor, since efforts for justice and sharing in the transformation of the world clearly appear as a constitutive dimension of the proclamation of the Gospel . . .”. (Mft. Const., 86 ff).
May Montfort’s Prayer for Missionaries be concretely realized among us in the coming years: “Lord, gather us in from every nation. Bring us together and unite us, and may all the glory be given to your holy and mighty name”! (PM 18).
Fr. William Considine, SMM
Superior General
