The Resilience of Fr. Attilio Stra

The Resilience of Fr. Attilio Stra

(ANS – Port-au-Prince, Haiti – May 17, 2023) – Fr. Attilio Stra, a Piedmontese Salesian missionary in Haiti, is among those who have been resisting every deterioration of the country for more than 4 decades. Earthquakes and typhoons have been devastating; the responses to the resulting health crises have been consistently inadequate for the affected population.

The cause and effect of each of these extreme moments lie in the absence of a government authority capable of organizing relief, as well as ensuring normal administration. Dependence on distant powers over the country’s history and extreme local corruption makes it seem that no further descent is possible.

“It would take a miracle to come out of this web of poverty, violence, crime, and external conditioning,” confides Fr. Stra. And he knows about miracles: during the magnitude 7 earthquake of January 12, 2010 – which severely affected Salesian structures, causing more than 300 victims among children, youths, and teachers – he survived the collapse of the National School of Arts and Crafts (ENAM - Ecole Nationale des Arts et Metiers), the first Salesian house in Haiti (1935). Even at that time in an email sent to ANS, he wrote: “I am alive by a miracle.”

Despite that terrible experience and all the difficulties that still plague the country today, Fr. Stra never considered leaving what has become his 2d homeland. Instead, together with his confreres and their collaborators, he strives to replicate in the 13 Salesian works in Haiti small daily “miracles.”

The efforts made by the Salesians in the 2010 emergency were renewed 2 years ago following a new seismic disaster; sandwiched in between was Hurricane Mathew in 2016, bringing further death and destruction.

It is a true miracle that 70 Salesians are still in Haiti. The houses with the Don Bosco insignia are a refuge for thousands of teenagers who, on the streets or in bars, come into contact with drug recruiters and extortionists. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the Salesians themselves are not exempt from the attention of thugs: criminal gangs infest the streets, no government is able to counter them, and political power, under constant threat from crime lords, fails to evolve in a positive direction and ensure either order, security, or peaceful coexistence.

All analyses lead to the view that there is no way out except for a “miracle,” precisely. Yet, among small daily “miracles,” the resilience of Fr. Stra and other missionaries is the only certain fact.

For more information, visit: www.missionidonbosco.org