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Mixing Christianity With Voodoo: How Do Haitians Do It?
Jul 3, 2020
In 2014, Haiti‘s first cardinal of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Chibly Langlois told The Guardian in an interview that voodoo worship was a “big social problem” in his country.
In one of the world’s poorest countries, Cardinal Langlois said people felt voodoo offered magical solutions to the myriad of problems they had.
“If a person is well educated and has the financial means, they will go to a doctor [instead of the voodoo priest] when they get sick. If that same person went to the court to get justice they would not go to the voodoo priest to get revenge. It’s a big problem for the church. And for Hait,” the cardinal was quoted as saying.
Cardinal Langlois’ sentiments are shared by many today as they were then. At least, Pope Benedict XVI once advised Christians in Benin to give up on what he believes is “syncretism which deceives”.
What the two men perhaps understand but wish was not so is the fact that voodoo is the cultural basis of their audiences’ identities. Like Hinduism to the Indians, the voodoo faith cannot be supplanted according to the whims of the worshippers of new gods.
Whether in Benin or in Haiti, voodoo is steeped into the weltanschauung of the people. It is actually Catholicism that has to convince them it is worth the try.
The history of the relationship between voodoo and Catholicism in Haiti has always been the latter forcing its way into the consciousness of the people of African descent.
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