By Katie Vasquez
People of faith across Brooklyn and Queens coming together at Holy Innocents church on March 18th, all to pray for peace in Haiti.
But for parishioners of the Flatbush church, one person was noticeably absent, their pastor, Father Luçon Rigaud, who was stuck in the Caribbean country.
“I was planning to come back to do what I had to do here,” said Father Rigaud, “and two days before it was the the protest with all the gang members activities.”
Days before gangs attacked Haiti’s major prisons and airports, Father Rigaud arrived to bury his father.
“It was a very difficult situation. Even after his funeral, the funeral couldn’t even come to pick his body, you know, from the hospital,” said Father Rigaud.
As he tried to deal with his grief, he was also saddened by his country, which has descended into chaos.
“People were dying right and left for so many reasons, and people were asking for food on the street because technically there was no money to buy anything,” said Father Rigaud.
Father Rigaud’s hometown of Les Cayes is located more than five hours from the capital of Port-Au-Prince and the country’s main airport, but more importantly, he was trapped thousands of miles away from his flock back in Brooklyn.
“Basically I used Zoom to conduct all my staff meetings, all my pastoral meetings with my parishioners,” said Father Rigaud.
Father Rigaud watched the livestream of the mass in Haiti, praying with his parishioners and his bishop.
“He was united with us, he said he would make it a point to watch the livestream, so that he could be praying alongside with us,” said Diocese of Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan.
It inspired him as he made his way back to Brooklyn, traveling from Les Cayes to Jacmel, crossing the border with the Dominican Republic at Pedernales and heading to Santo Domingo where he was able to catch a flight to Newark.
The journey, normally a 3 hour flight took 3 days.
“It was a very stressful situation added to the loss of my father,” said Father Rigaud.
Now the Brooklyn pastor is praying God will look after the Caribbean nation.
“My hope for Haiti is that things will get better. Haiti will become the country it used to be,” said Father Rigaud, ” Haiti is a country where people are, they are good believers in God and those who believe in God. There’s always hope, even when everything seems to be hopeless.”