If you follow events in Mormonism you’ve surely heard about the Church’s latest temple opening in Haiti.
As usual, the Church is long on pointing out details of the temple’s interior, and short on exterior events of the host country where they’ve invited themselves to reside.
As a side item here – there are roughly 19,000-23,000 members of the Church which means they make up a mere 0.2% of the Haitian population of roughly 10 million.
The Church claimed at least 80% of Haiti is Catholic, but their numbers are way off. Our research shows it’s more like 57-58%. See report below.
Images of their upscale furnishings reminded me of when I lived in Vegas, and my visit to the Liberace Museum. It’s a flamboyant display of opulence, and something no Haitian will ever know in their lifetime. Everything is overbuilt, and overstated.
The Church’s news release mainly focused on the Swarovski crystal chandeliers from Austria, hand blown Venetian glass from Italy, and high end light fixtures, ‘Italamps’, also from Italy.
The meager offering to their host country was having palm branches painted on the interior walls which are prevalent in Haiti. The Church also pointed out it’s a reminder of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. For more info, see LDS Living.com. Haiti officially recognized the Church in 1980.
One thing you can count on…the 10,000+ square foot building certainly isn’t a reflection of what’s taking place outside those walls.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the poorest in the world. While the Church didn’t publish the cost of their venture, it’s safe to say it’s in the hundreds of millions. They obviously have no shame whatsoever.
The reality for Haitians is far different from what’s going on in the Church. Below is a synopsis of what life is like for the Haitian people. We gathered our info from several resources on 8.24.19. Many of our resources had repetitive info, so we’ve scaled this down and used one example for each stat.
The obvious question: why has the Church built a temple here?
Will the Church minister to these dear people without having them sign a paper to become Mormon? We’re doubtful any such thing will happen in Haiti.
This temple is reminiscent of when LDS leaders went to Kenya and told people they needed to go to South Africa to attend temple. Their behavior is outrageous at best.
With that said, we have faith our Lord and God will intervene as He’s done elsewhere, so don’t forget to pray!
With Love in Christ;
Michelle
Population • 9 – 10 million
Education •
50% of children don’t attend school
30% of children attending primary school won’t make it to 3rd grade
60% will abandon school before 6th grade
Literacy rate • 61% – 64% for males & 57% for females
Literacy rate for Latin American & Caribbean developing countries • 92%
Health •
30% of population is food insecure
22% prevalence of stunting (moderate to severe)
100,000 children under five suffer acute malnutrition
Less than 50% of households have access to safe water
25% percent have adequate sanitation
33% of women & kids are anemic
1 doctor for 9,846 persons. In US • 1 to 365
Life expectancy
Haiti • 57.6 years
USA for a black person • 73.1 years, a white person • 78.3 years
Infant mortality rate is 10x higher than US
Haiti • 62.3 deaths/1,000 live births
US • 6.3/1,000 live births
Economics •
66% live on less than $2.00 (US) per day
25% live in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 (US) per day
50% living in urban areas unemployed
Widespread unemployment and underemployment
Over two-thirds of labor force don’t have formal jobs • 58.5%
Per capita income is $350 a year ($409 in urban areas)
Restaveks, aka, human trafficking is a major problem.
“Haiti is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. According to the State Department’s 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report, most of Haiti’s trafficking cases involve children in domestic servitude, known as “restaveks,” from the French for “to stay with.” Most frequently, poor families place children in such situations with an expectation that their children will be housed, fed, and educated. Instead, many are kept in slave-like conditions, are physically and sexually abused, and do not go to school.”
Religious Demographics •
Roman Catholic 54.7%, Protestant 28.5% (Baptist 15.4%, Pentecostal 7.9%, Adventist 3%, Methodist 1.5%, other 0.7%), Vodou 2.1%, other 4.6%, none 10.2% (2003 est.)
Many practice elements of Vodou in addition to another religion, most often Roman Catholicism; Vodou was recognized as official religion in 2003
I have spent a considerable amount of time grappling with the Haitian temple. Why is a temple being built in Haiti? Geographically central to ….?The Dominican Republic? Uh, uh, uh … I give up. No logical reason that I can come up with. This should cause angst among the lds tithe-paying people. No temple district in Haiti that is contributing.
We’re praying it would cause angst as you said, and lots of it. What a shameful thing to do – but I guess that doesn’t bother them…
If the Mormon Church really cared about the people of Haiti rather than promoting itself, the church would have built a hospital and staffed it with Mormon volunteers, even give the volunteers credit for “Serving a Mission”. Imagine what the average Haitian thinks when they attend open house at the temple and see all these lavish furnishings. They are going to think, who do these Mormons think they are, building this splendid House of Grandeur ,among our poverty ridden people. Hey Mormons, if you really loved us: feed us, clothe us, repair our roads,.and provide us with medical facilities that can help to heal our sick
I wish I could find the article from either Deseret News, or Salt Lake Trib that did an interview with a Haitian Mormon woman not long after the earthquake. She was dressed in all white.
The article noted that the Church had emphasized the importance of wearing your Sunday best to church even in the midst of turmoil.
They had just experienced one of the biggest earthquakes known to mankind and they were worried about dressing up for church. I’d say that I was shocked, but sadly I wasn’t.
Another comment from the Old Sarge (Soldiermp). Why does the church insist on building temples in areas that have a minimal Mormon population? The church uses numbers, some accurate, some false, to depict the number of church members in an area. What the church doesn’t do, is to indicate just how many members are “Active”. In other words, you may have 25,000 Mormons in Rome, Italy. The church then figures we need to build a temple for those 25,000 members. The reality is, of the 25,000 members, only about 5,000 are active. So then, what is the purpose of the temple?.If not for worship, then for what?
TEMPLES,TEMPLES,TEMPLES…How many do we need? According to the Bible there was only 1(ONE), and now we have Jesus.
Are there enough temple “worthy” members in Haiti to justify and sustain a temple? Who can afford the 10% tithing requirement?
I’m with old Sarge on this one. Instead of spending all that money on Swarovski crystals they should have used the funding to help this country. Haiti doesn’t need a biblical useless building. They need hospitals, clean water, education, roads etc.
As a side note…I think the Lds church has more In common with Vodouism, than Christianity. The church is so clueless, they don’t see just how shameful, arrogant they really are.
I couldn’t write this yesterday because it really upset me, as I try not to act out of anger.
Great post Michelle…thanks
I can understand and appreciate the reaction. Sigh…
That post was supposed to go up two days beforehand. However…my computer kept crashing, and then without warning it’d shut itself off to do updates.
In addition to that, the site I use to make images for posts crashed.
After all those things, i decided I’d post it on Sunday,
Sunday came around and the article I had written as well as the version of an image I had made had mysteriously disappeared. Everything. All of it was gone even though I remember saving it to ensure it’d be there the next day.
I went into my computer settings, and it said nothing was found after 2 hrs of searching and then my search history went missing.
Obviously there was a fair amount of issues going on!
I spent another full day putting another article up, and noticed this a.m. that parts of it were missing and out of order. So I did major edits today and that’s where it’s going to sit! 😉
I’m thinking the evil one doesn’t want the truth to be exposed. Hmmm!