Istwa Nou

The papal aircraft landed at Port-au-Prince on 9 March 1983 in front of tens of thousands of people. John Paul II came down the steps, walked off the red carpet imported for the occasion, and kissed the ground. Answering the president's speech of welcome, he addressed the crowd in Creole, getting through the unfamiliar sounds well enough to be understood, and spoke about misery, hunger and fear. Then he said it: Fok sa chanje. Things must change. He celebrated Mass in the open at the closed airport, declined the food the government had flown from Miami and ate with Haitian priests instead, and stopped at the palace only long enough to bless the Duvaliers' six week old son. Port-au-Prince enjoyed the details for weeks, including the fact that the first lady had not worn a hat. The Vatican had a purpose of its own. Liberation theology was spreading through Latin America, young Haitian priests in the movement called Ti Legliz were among the most militant of its adherents, and Rome wanted the church's moral authority back from bishops who had spent a generation with the government.