The Haitian Church — Rupture to Concordat

When Haiti declared independence in 1804 as the first Black republic, its church was cut adrift. Rome would not recognize the new state, the French clergy had fled or been killed, and for more than half a century no properly appointed bishop and almost no seminary-trained priest arrived. The state filled the gap, appointing its own clergy, and the parishes were served by men of irregular standing. Some genuine priests under suspension, some who had simply assumed the title. In that long vacancy Haitian religious life took the shape it has largely kept: Catholic sacraments, feast days and saints woven together with Vodou practice inherited from West Africa, held by most Haitians as one thing rather than two. The rupture formally ended on 28 March 1860, when Haiti and the Holy See signed a concordat restoring a regular hierarchy. And began a much longer argument about what to do with everything that had grown up in the meantime.