Vatican releases first report on religious death toll in Haiti

Vatican City, Feb 2, 2010 / 11:05 am

Twenty days after Haiti was ravaged by the 7.0 earthquake, the Vatican has released its intial assesment of the number of male and female religious who died in the cataclysmic event. The report also lists buildings that were destroyed or damage in the disaster.

According to Fides, the news agency of the Vatican's Congregation for Evangelization, the list of dead religious shows that the quake inflicted “irreparable damage” on the Catholic Church in Haiti, without accounting for the extensive material destruction of the Church's infrastructure.

The preliminary report shows that the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul have suffered damage to their community houses and the loss of one religious sister.

The Daughters of Wisdom suffered the complete destruction of their house and school, and the death of six sisters.

The Daughters of Mary were hit extremely hard, with 13 religious losing their lives to the violent tremor.

The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians had their community house and school leveled, while the Christian Brothers lost their provincial house, three schools and the lives of two brothers.

The teaching community of The Little Sisters of St. Therese suffered the loss of four sisters, seven teachers and 60 students. Two of the order's community houses and five of their schools were flattened.

The Salesians of Don Bosco lost three brothers to the earthquake as well as one community house and one school.

The final religious community to report a death was the Sisters of St. Anne, who lost one sister.

The Franciscan Sisters informed the Vatican congregation that their school was a total loss.

According to the report, there is also extensive material damage to the structures of the Marianists, the Missionaries of Scheut, the Missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation.