by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

In addition to the 200,000 people who died in the Haiti earthquake, the Vatican has just released an initial assessment of the number of priests and religious who died in the disaster as well as the number of churches that were destroyed.

According to the Catholic News Agency (CNA), the preliminary report found that the quake inflicted “irreparable damage” on the Catholic Church in Haiti.

In addition to the loss of Port-au-Prince Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot along with hundreds of priests and seminarians, every church as well as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Port-au-Prince were completely destroyed.

Several religious orders were also hit very hard such as the teaching community of The Little Sisters of St. Therese. This order suffered the loss of four sisters, seven teachers and 60 students. Two of their community houses and five of their schools were leveled.

The Daughters of Mary lost 13 religious and the Daughters of Wisdom lost six sisters.

The Christian Brothers lost their provincial house, three schools and the lives of two brothers while the Salesians of St. Don Bosco lost three brothers, a community house and one school.

The report also lists extensive 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.

Damage estimates are still being made.

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