LEGAL FRAMEWORK

The constitution provides for the free exercise of all religions.  Under the law, the BOW’s primary responsibilities are to register religious and missionary organizations and certify the credentials of clergy of all denominations, authorizing these operations in the country.  The law also tasks the BOW to encourage tolerance and arbitrate conflicts within and between religious groups.

Registering religious organizations and clergy offers certain benefits, but there are no penalties for noncompliance.  Benefits for registered religious organizations may include tax-exempt status, exemption from import duties on church-related items, standing in legal disputes, and eligibility to receive public land to build schools.  To obtain this status, a religious group must submit information on its leaders’ qualifications, a membership directory, a list of the group’s social projects, and annual activity reports to the BOW.  Completion of the separate clergy registration process also confers certain benefits, namely the legal authority to conduct civil ceremonies such as marriages and baptisms following an oath-taking ceremony organized by the Ministry of Justice.  To obtain registered clergy status, the individual sponsored by a registered religious entity must submit approximately 10 documents.  The required documentation package includes proof of completion for both secondary school and university or seminary-level religious studies as well as a police certificate confirming no criminal record and no outstanding warrants.

A concordat between the government and the Holy See signed in 1860 formalizes the relationship between the state and the Catholic Church.  The concordat affords privileges to the Catholic Church, including state protection and monthly stipends for some priests.  It also provides the President the right of consent over the appointment of Catholic archbishops and bishops to their positions.

Foreign missionaries operating in the country are subject to the same legal and administrative requirements as their domestic counterparts.

The country is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

GOVERNMENT PRACTICES

According to media, on April 15, police fired tear gas at dozens of individuals participating in a nationwide event called “Mass for the Freedom of Haiti.”  On this date, the Catholic Church held hundreds of masses simultaneously across the country to protest the deepening political crisis and rising insecurity during the government of then President Moise.  At the time, the 400 Mawozo gang had been holding 10 Catholic clergy for a period of four days.  As a focal point for the event, 11 Catholic bishops led by Archbishop of Port-au-Prince Max Leroy Mesidor held Mass at the Church of St. Peter in Petion-Ville, a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince.  Authorities said they used tear gas after the conclusion of Mass to prevent the escalation of violence because nearby demonstrators had begun to burn cars.  In the aftermath, Father Loudeger Mazile, spokesman for the Catholic Episcopal Conference of Haiti, asked everyone “to remain calm so that we can return to the route of democracy and development.”

Media also reported that on April 21, outside the National Palace, approximately 20 protesters, using a Vodou ritual, demonstrated against Moise-era overall insecurity and kidnappings of Catholic clergy.  While protesters were conducting the ritual, police used tear gas in an attempt to disperse them.

Religious leaders publicly called for the cessation of violence during the year.  In March, the Haitian Conference of Religious wrote an open letter calling on then President Moise to step down, citing what they said was rampant insecurity and injustice in the country, and it stated his administration represented a “descent into hell.”  The letter said of the then Moise government, “The country is dying, the population is under a yoke, insecurity is rampant, the poorest are no longer able to sustain themselves, the population is in disarray and on the verge of desperation… [President Moise] has the duty to give quick and concrete answers to the requests of the people, starting with respect for the laws of the country.”  The calls for government accountability expanded into major protests throughout the country during the entire month of March.  A wide-reaching coalition of Protestant churches joined the growing protests after the Protestant Commission Against Dictatorship in Haiti and the Episcopal Conference of Haiti issued statements calling upon the population to “defend the life, future, and dignity of the Haitian people.”  In April, Catholic leaders continued to publish statements and organize protests, but the focus was increasingly on the lack of government response to kidnappings and gang violence.

The 1860 concordat was a major subject of debate among religious leaders during the year.  A Catholic leader said the Church continued to adhere to the concordat because it was legally bound to do so under the country’s legal system.  One Protestant leader said the concordat was a contract between two sovereign states that must be respected until it was reassessed.  He added that his denomination valued its independence and had no interest in submitting its choices in religious leadership for government approval.  Conversely, several other non-Catholic religious leaders raised concern about the concordat.  One Protestant leader said the concordat afforded the Catholic Church powerful influence over the government.  Vodou leaders cited it as an example of “historical institutionalized predisposition” against them.

Vodou leaders said that while the state of religious freedom made them optimistic for the future, prejudice against them still lingered and often made Vodouists fearful to practice openly.  They did not, however, accuse the government of directly discriminating against them.  Vodou leaders said the government could do more to combat ongoing societal discrimination by encouraging acceptance of Vodouists.  One leader said, “The government should provide us financial support like they do for the Protestants, Catholics, and Episcopalians.”

Some Protestant religious leaders advocated for increased government regulation of religious groups.  One leader stated, “There may be too much religious freedom,” and she said some religious leaders had long called for more stringent government standards for clergy registration.  She said her concern was that self-described pastors with little religious training or accountability could prey on naive churchgoers.  Another Protestant leader also commented on the need for stringent standards for clergy, citing COVID-19 misinformation.  He said, “Hiding behind religious freedom, questionable leaders have preached against COVID-19 vaccination or even promoted unscientific cures.  The government should do something.”

The BOW said that it continued to work with less established religious groups to facilitate their registrations, while defending what it said was the importance of a rigorous registration process.  In May, the BOW granted an operating license to the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, the smallest of the three Muslim communities in the country and the first to receive official status.  According to the BOW, the Ahmadiyya community followed the same registration procedure that applied to all religious groups.  The license allowed the MOE to register schools operated by the Ahmadiyya Muslim community so their students could take national exams.  BOW Director General Souffrant said the transparency of the Ahmadiyya leadership during the registration process assisted the government in its decision to grant it a license.  Sunni and Shia Muslim groups had not completed the procedures for registration and remained unregistered at year’s end.  Sunni and Shia leaders cited what they called “the complex political environment” as a factor delaying their registration, with one leader stating, “The current de facto government is not likely to take it upon itself to recognize a religion that is nascent in the country.”  BOW Director General Souffrant disagreed with this characterization, citing the successful example of the Ahmadiyya community.  At year’s end, representatives from the Sunni and Shia communities did not cite specific procedural barriers that distinguished their experience from other groups.

Despite the benefits of registering, many religious groups and leaders chose to remain unregistered.  According to the BOW, many religious groups and leaders preferred to remain unregistered to avoid government oversight.  Religious minorities said they generally disagreed with this assessment or suggested it was an oversimplification.  According to a Vodou leader, in contrast to its Catholic and Protestant counterparts, the decentralized Vodou community did not easily fit into the government’s criteria for institutional registration.  The Vodou leader also said Vodou clergy faced structural barriers to BOW registration because no degree-granting institution existed for Vodouists, and to create one would be contrary to their initiation rituals.  Two Vodouists had earlier received government recognition, but these were the religion’s highest-level officials, and they obtained the formal credentials required for BOW registration through their appointment to leadership positions within the National Confederation of Haitian Vodou.

According to the BOW, there were 9,195 certified Protestant pastors, 704 certified Catholic priests, and two certified Vodou clergy at year’s end, representing no change from 2020.  By year’s end, the government had not certified any Muslim clergy, including from the newly registered Ahmadiyya community.

According to a Catholic leader, the Catholic Church felt “penalized” whenever a Protestant or Vodouist headed the MFA, of which the BOW is part.  He stated that whenever the Catholic Church criticized government actions, the MFA retaliated by creating long delays for certification of clergy and other routine requests.  Representatives of the Episcopal Church said the registration process was “reasonable and fair.”

According to the World Bank, approximately 75 percent of total primary school enrollment and 82 percent of total secondary school enrollment in the country was in private, usually religious, schools.  The MOE stated that Catholic schools accounted for 15 percent (16 percent of total enrollment) of all schools in the education system, and public schools accounted for 12 percent.  The remaining 73 percent of schools were private institutions either run by Protestant churches (of a wide variety of denominations), secular for-profit, or secular nonprofit organizations.  Although there were no available official statistics, the majority of these were private Protestant institutions, according to the BOW.  The significant expansion of private Protestant institutions was initiated and facilitated in large part by the Jean-Claude Duvalier administration’s national education campaign during the 1970s and 1980s, which required missionaries to build an affiliated school with the construction of any church.

During the 2020-2021 school year, the MOE disbursed a total of 100 million gourdes ($1 million) to religious schools through the National Education Fund:  50 million ($501,000) to Catholic schools; 40 million to Protestant schools ($401,000); and 10 million ($100,000) to Episcopalian schools, which the ministry counted separately from Protestant schools.  The MOE distributed funds roughly in proportion to each religious group’s percent share of the student population.  The Director General of the Office of the National Education Fund stated on November 22 that the same amounts would be disbursed for the 2021-2022 school year.  In 2020, the government signed a three-year agreement with the Catholic Church calling for annual public financial support for Catholic schools, especially those in vulnerable areas, as identified jointly by political and civil society leaders.  By year’s end, there was no announcement regarding funding under this agreement.

The MOE continued to schedule national exams on weekdays instead of Saturdays, which allowed the full participation of Seventh-day Adventist students.

In September, Prime Minister Ariel Henry dismissed the incumbent members of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), seeking to replace them with what he called a “more credible” body of representatives.  Upon dismissing the incumbent members, he invited representatives from civil society to nominate new ones.  Among religious groups that received his request, the Catholic Church and Protestant Federation initially refused to participate in the process to join the CEP on the grounds that the representational institution had become too politicized.  Government officials said they expected Catholic, Protestant, and Vodou communities to nominate members from their respective associations by year’s end; however, at year’s end, none of these communities had nominated new members.  Government officials involved in the procedures for CEP formation stated that the nomination process for the Protestant representative to the CEP was particularly contentious because multiple Protestant coordinating bodies each saw themselves as the rightful representative of the country’s Protestants.

Religions for Peace (RFP), an interfaith organization that included leaders from the Catholic, evangelical Protestant, Episcopalian, and Vodouist communities on its coordinating committee, led many efforts to pursue collaborative religious advocacy.  Throughout the year, RFP issued several open letters calling for peace, solidarity, and respect for human dignity, notably in response to rising violence and kidnappings, the July 7 assassination of President Moise, and an earthquake on August 14.  RFP also acted from September 2019 until April 2021 as the chief facilitator of a peace dialogue that aimed to broker a solution to the Moise-era political and insecurity crisis.  RFP stated in October that it was exploring how a representative from the Muslim community could join the organization as a full council member.  Although formal talks with the Muslim community had not begun by year’s end, Imam Abou Jahman of the Allahou Akbar Spiritual Center in Carrefour-Feuilles often cosigned RFP’s open letters.  Unaffiliated with RFP, Pastor Jean Bilda, President of the Council of Evangelical Churches of Haiti, said his group enjoyed and promoted “harmonious” cooperation with the government, leaders of other religions, and other Protestants.