Vatican News
Pope Francis has appointed two auxiliary bishops to Mgr Max Leroy Mésidor, metropolitan archbishop of Port-au-Prince and president of the Conference of Bishops of Haiti. The Haitian capital is still 80% controlled by armed gangs who have been making the country live like hell for many months.
A seminar trainer Mgr Sander Louis-Jean was born on October 17, 1967 in Jérémie, in the diocese of the same name. Entering the Grand Séminaire Notre-Dame d’Haïti to continue his ecclesiastical studies in philosophy and theology, he was ordained priest on November 17, 1996, incardinated in the archdiocese of Port-au-Prince.
He was first vicar then priest of the Saint-Pierre parish in Pétion-Ville from 1997 to 2003, before obtaining a license in spiritual theology in 2005 as well as a diploma in Spiritual Counseling at the Pontifical Institute of Spirituality Teresianum in Rome. He then became spiritual director and teacher in spiritual theology from 2012 to 2020 at the Grand Séminaire Notre-Dame d’Haïti. He has since been pastor of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption Cathedral in Port-au-Prince and president of the Diocesan Commission for Catechesis and Liturgy.
A Montfortian missionary Mgr Wismick Jean-Charles was born on November 29, 1963 in Petites-Desdunes, in the diocese of Gonaïves. After his secondary studies, he entered the Salesian postulancy of Thorland and continued his studies of philosophy at the Grand Séminaire Notre-Dame d’Haïti. He was ordained a priest on January 15, 1995.
Mgr Wismick was vicar in the diocese of Port-de-Paix then in New York where he obtained a master’s degree in counseling psychology, a master’s degree in education in 2009, a doctorate in psychology and a certificate in spiritual direction in 2011 at Fordham Jesuit University in New York. He also completed a postdoctoral specialization in global mental health at Harvard University in 2012.
A Montfortian missionary, he was provincial secretary of the Montfortians in Port-au-Prince between 2022 and 2006, then director of the Montfort Marian Center in Turgeau and director of the Center for Evangelization, Spirituality and Mental Health before becoming vicar general of the Company of Mary (Montfortian missionaries) from 2017 to 2023. Since 2017, he has also been president of the International Commission for the Protection of Minors of the Company of Mary in Rome.
