The Catholic Church in Haiti, by Anne Greene
Hogan, John P.
and thereby undermines the validity of his own, in pointing out that "inevitably, those who needed the public help the most---es- pecially the poor and the young--were not so adept at...
...Unleashing a massive deficit-cutting program could further overwhelm the poor, trigger a recession or worse, and still not solve the productivity problem...
...If this is the case, then the kind of cuts envisioned in this volume can hardly be expected to exempt the poor...
...It is true that a substantial fraction of this investment was financed by overseas savers...
...During this period, a new concept of mission, involving a prophetic outreach toward rural Haitians and away from the urban, mulatto elite, was reinforced by liberation theology, a native clergy, and the growth of basic Christian communities...
...U.S.-Haitian diplomatic blunders are sprinkled throughout the text...
...Peterson offers a program that is unacceptable because the risks associated with it far outweigh its likelihood of success...
...The church shifted its attention to the countryside, working in education, economic development, health, and literacy...
...and thereby undermines the validity of his own, in pointing out that "inevitably, those who needed the public help the most---especially the poor and the young--were not so adept at pushing to the front of the line...
...HAITI'S BISHOPS TURN THEIR BACKS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN HAITI Political and Social Change Anne Greene Michigan State University Press, $28.95, 312 pp...
...In spite of these changes, Greene quotes a U.S...
...the influence of eighteenth-century French anticlericalism and its rekindling because of the Catholic church's support of the U.S...
...The risk is that by reducing consumption in the name of increasing savings, the economy will go into a downward spiral caused by declin22:6 May 1994 ing consumption...
...Further, Peterson gives us no reason at all to believe that the vast increase in savings which a massive reduction in the deficit would produce will find productive outlets...
...the stormy anti-Voodoo campaigns of the hierarchy even in the face of widespread Voodoo practice on the part of rural Catholics...
...The first two chapters present overviews of church and state in Latin America and Haiti...
...But it will have to be more nuanced than Peterson's in simultaneously addressing the needs of the poor and the economy...
...Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, gross private investment as a share of GDP hovered at around 17 percent with no tendency to fall until the early 1990s...
...That is, during the years of U.S...
...The Holy Father' s cry that "things must change" electrified Haitians and just about electrocuted Baby Doc...
...It also provokes questions about Haiti's current plight...
...This new pastoral plan put the church on a collision course with the government...
...Anne Greene's account of the church's part in the overthrow of JeanClaude Duvalier evokes memories of the high point of Haitian church history...
...As a result, he is much too cavalier in considering the issue which motivated Keynes in the 1930s...
...But the real problem with Peterson' s approach lies not in this kind of political misjudgment...
...occupying forces in 1919...
...In December 1983, the Commonweal...
...We do need a strategy which will accelerate productivity growth...
...Simply put, Peterson's confidence that increasing the pool of savings in this way will accelerate productivity growth is unwarranted...
...The analytic pivot for his policy prescription is his "rule of thumb" that a 1-percent increment in productivity will require an increase in investment of 6 to 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP...
...Peterson's strategy, to accelerate productivity growth by increasing investment, is not directed to the fight disease...
...occupation from 1919 to 1935...
...productivity decline, investment did not fall at all...
...embassy spokesman, "...religion was not an influential institution in Haitian national affairs...
...In this case, what the government does not spend, if not made up by an increase in investment, could well trigger falling production and employment...
...Since a government deficit reduces the savings available for investment, Peterson reasons that the goal of raising productivity growth can be achieved by eliminating that deficit and using all of that money in new investment...
...The book goes on to document the seminal role played by the Haitian Conference of Religion (CHR) and the impact made by John Paul II in his 1983 visit...
...But whatever the source of its financing, declining investment was not the reason for falling productivity growth rates...
...The changed approach was clearly a preferential option for the poor tailored to Haitian needs, including a homegrown, Scripture-based adaptation of Catholic social thought and liberation theology's action-reflection-praxis methodology...
...John P. Hogan he role of the Catholic church in Haiti's desperate struggle has been both celebrated and maligned, and rightly so...
...In a book full of data, it is striking that one important and easily obtained data set is not mentioned at all...
...Most important, it trained peasant leaders...
...Greene makes ample use of early church documents and deals extensively with the seeds of twentieth-century church-state tensions: the long battle surrounding the Concordat of 1860, which granted the government approval over naming bishops...
...As the heat was turned up on Jean-Claude, the author rightly points out the shortsightedness of such an assessment...
...For example, I was dismayed that there is no mention of Charlemagne P6ralte, the resistance fighter executed by the U.S...
...Rather it lies in his economics, and specifically in his single-minded commitment to the belief that increasing savings by reducing the budget deficit is the key to the restoration of rapid productivity growth...
...The meat of the volume is in two chapters covering the rule of Jean-Claude Duvalier, 1971-86...
...Key actors and events are left out...
...Unfortunately, the treatment is too superficial to create the needed context...
...These initial chapters indicate the dominate role played by the United States in Haitian history...
Vol. 121 • May 1994 • No. 9
