Update from Fr. Rick Frechette: Passing of Raphael Louigene
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September 5, 2023
Dear family and friends,
As I write these words, the violent rule of gangs in Port au Prince in increasing, and reaching our neighborhood, which is also the neighborhood of US Embassy.
The Embassy is, during these very days, evacuating all non-emergency personnel.
The effect on us is that our hospital now receives many warlike trauma and gunshot injuries, especially since the specialty hospital nearby that was managing them closed, precisely because of armed attack on their hospital.
We cannot get surgeons to come to our area. It is a red zone. And like many hospitals in Port au Prince, we cannot even keep the competent people we already have, since many are fleeing Haiti to raise their families in a safer country.
We are not capable of managing high level trauma. It means we stabilize the gunshot injured as best as we can and transfer them to a private surgery center at our expense, for which we have no budget but must act to save lives.
We are facing the worse crisis we have ever faced in 34 years of dedicated mission here, and the consequences are not only the disintegration of a nation and all the institutions that constitute civilization, but the people are floundering in a tsunami of despair. The dangerous sickness of despair surrounds us like a violent sea in a hurricane.
And yet amid all of this, there was Raphael.
The prophet Isaiah says, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7)
Raphael had such feet. A hero during our two earthquakes, a hero in Covid, a hero in Cholera (two epidemics), a hero rescuing gunshot wounded from areas of conflict, a hero in negotiating cease fires for deliveries of food and water to marginalized populations.
A skilled emergency medical technician who could start an IV on an ant if he had to, builder of schools and clinics, rescuer of the kidnapped, available night and day to whoever needed him. Raphael showed masterful leadership in healing divisions, calming dangerous levels of tensions, working out agreements. The list goes on and on.
I blessed his prophetic feet, his hands, his heart, his forehead before we placed him in his coffin.
We have lost one of the pillars of our mission, one of the founders, one of our most able leaders in all categories of problems and tragedies. We have lost our hero, Raphael Louigene.
Raphael died two weeks ago of the stress of his burdens. Burdens he gladly carried for the countless vulnerable and suffering. Thrown to the ground by a massive stroke. Please morn with us his loss, which is huge. Tonight is the last night of our public prayer for him.
You can read the nine nights of prayer tribute to Raphael on stlukehaiti.org.
The thoughts below apply to everyone who carries suffering, especially for the sake of another. May they be a comfort for anyone anywhere, both burdened and helping others with their burdens:
“You are not here to find love everywhere, nor to be greeted by happiness at every turn, nor to be showered with kindness and gratitude all along the way, nor to remain forever young.
You came here to create love out of division, even out of war, by God’s grace.
Your eternal soul was created and placed into a stifling frame of bone, blood and flesh.
Only here can inner strength be forged by pain, can wisdom be nurtured by failure, can love be the reward of those who choose to give love without counting the cost.
Your soul struggles with the bitter things of life to know the sweetness of inner joy.
There is no river of love that runs as deep as the love forged through a battle of the heart, no strength as powerful as that wrestled from the hands of evil through defiant resolve, no wisdom as that gained by stumbling in darkness, standing up again, stumbling and walking again, and again.
All that is good, all that has meaning, can be yours by your sacrificial love, shored up by God’s Mercy." -- Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
We work for this; we hope for this:
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life."
Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children." (Revelations 21:1-27)
I was so lucky to be with Raphael as he died. We fought to stabilize him, to airlift him to USA, to follow recommendations by facetime of teams in Haiti and USA. I held his arm as he died, and my hand rested on his head in prayer,
I don't have my own children, but I am called "father."
At that moment, I truly felt to be a father. I felt what it must be like to lose a cherished son.
Raphael by his own testimony was bound to be initiated into a life of crime.
It could not be avoided where he was born and grew up.
I started working as priest and doctor in his marginalized neighborhood, with Mother Theresa's Brothers, in 1999 when he was 17 years old.
He was searching for something else for his life, other than being condemned to crime.
Jesus says some seed falls among thorns, some in shallow soil, somewhere birds are foraging, and some send strong taproots into rich soil.
Seeds fall where they may, but people choose thorns or briars or toxic soil. Or they choose the rich culture of love.
Raphael freed himself of thorns and briars and toxic settings. He started to work with us for a different future. His evolution was incredible. Yet he stayed tied to those choking in their toxic environments, hoping choices for their liberation could be possible. For many over the years, they were.
For 25 years he worked at my side, dying at 41 years old.
I brought Raphael and many other of our Haitian staff into my world -- many of you knew him and have known many of the others.
We ran a peace marathon in Bethlehem, we raised funds in Italy, Spain, Germany, we visited Africa and India.
Raphael brought me into the off road and farthest corners of his world too, both to the refreshing beauty of the Jacmel mountains where he was from, and to the unspeakable conditions of the marginalized in Port au Prince.
As Haiti became more and more violent, many times over the past three years I tried to convince Raphael to take his children to USA and stay there with them.
He did not want to leave Haiti.
What would become of Haiti if everyone left, he would ask?
But he especially said he would not leave Haiti if I was not leaving Haiti …
He made it a point to protect me. I made it a point to protect him.
So, we worked together, and went together into the dangers: to free kidnapped people, to rescue the injured, to try to broker peace.
Together we also picked up many brutalized bodies, some so bad we could only lift them with a shovel. We took them off the streets to get them out of view especially of children, and away from the hungry pigs and dogs that eat them, and to bury them with some small dignity.
But over the past two years, every time we did this I was sickened, imaging one day I would be called to retrieve Raphael’s body this way, or he would be retrieving mine.
When he died in the hospital he helped build, and with us at his side, I was so very grateful for the way Raphael died. A good death. Fast and peaceful. With prayer.
It's strange to be in a country where when you lose a treasured friend you are suddenly glad he was not massacred.
After Raphael died, when we then travelled through violent gangs to visit his mother in the province, we passed through dangerous areas with no problem because these gangs were also grieving Raphael, for all his humanitarian efforts in their areas,
We drank bitter coffee with his mother, Fifi, which is a tradition in the countryside when one is mourning.
Fifi suddenly told me she was so very glad of how Raphael died. She was afraid also of what I was afraid of.
She said it gives her strength and peace that Raphael died as I held his arm and prayed for him, with many of us around him.
This speaks volumes about the state of the country.
When Raphael died, many lost a true father, and many others lost a cherished brother. We all lost a treasured friend.
And like Fifi and the elders of his family, I lost a beloved son.
“Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
We are eternally grateful for his life and witness, and count on his help from heaven.
I assure you that in obedience to God's dream for humanity, for the world, for Haiti, and strengthened by Raphael's example, we pledge to engage even stronger to be in solidarity with the people in such difficult times, fully convinced that we will see better times ahead with God's help.
May the soul of Raphael Louigene, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Fr. Richard Frechette, CP, D.O.
Port au Prince
July 30, 2023