Haiti’s Aristide Reportedly to Leave Priesthood

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the slum priest whose fiery championship of the poor often pitted him against dictators and his Roman Catholic superiors, is leaving the priesthood.

The Vatican, long at odds with the populist priest, pressured Aristide to resign, a church source said Wednesday. Two government officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Aristide will leave the priesthood.

There was no immediate comment by Aristide or specific reason given for his departure.

He spent Wednesday meeting with Haitian business leaders and Oscar Arias Sanchez, the former president of Costa Rica who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987.

At a news conference, Arias urged Haitians to follow his country’s model and abolish the army, which has been blamed for condoning thousands of political killings in the last three years.

Aristide’s withdrawal from the priesthood is not likely to hurt his support among Haiti’s poor, many of whom associated the conservative church hierarchy with the old military regime.

The Salesian order expelled Aristide in 1988, saying his liberation theology teachings were inciting class war, but the Vatican never formally defrocked him.

Aristide, who swept U.N.-supervised elections four years ago, returned to Haiti on Oct. 15 after three years in exile following a September, 1991, military coup. Thousands of U.S. soldiers came to the Caribbean nation to help restore his government.

The church official, who requested anonymity, said Aristide will send a letter of resignation to the Vatican, but he did not say when. Aristide decided it would be better for predominantly Catholic Haiti if he resigned because the Vatican is so influential, the official said.