Rome (Italy). The National Center of the Haitian Apostolate appointed Sister Martha Séide, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians – FMA, as Sister of the Year 2020 and Fr. William Smarth as Father of the Year 2020.
The National Center of the Haitian Apostolate (NCHA) is grateful for the ministry carried out in the Church and in society by Haitian religious. NCHA is based in New York and among the initiatives it promotes, it has the tradition of appointing two Haitian people every year in a recognition of talent and as encouragement and gratitude for the educational mission carried out.
Sr. Martha Séide, of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians Institute – Salesians di Don Bosco, was chosen from among the Haitians abroad as the Religious of the Year 2020. The Haitian Religious lives in Rome and has 34 years of religious life. She obtained a Licentiate in Catholic Theology from the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the Marc Bloch University of Strasbourg in France – 2001; the Doctorate in Educational Sciences, with specialization in Pedagogical Methodology at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the Salesian Pontifical University (UPS) – Rome, 1996; and the License in Educational Sciences, with specialization in Pedagogy at the Pontifical Faculty of Education Sciences «Auxilium» – Rome. She teaches at the Auxilium Faculty of Education in Rome and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Msgr. Guy Sansaricq, Emeritus Bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn wanted to express gratitude to Sister Martha Séide, who was chosen as Sister of the Year 2020, by the National Center of the Haitian Apostolate, with these words: “We are delighted to honor her at the National Center of the Haitian Apostolate abroad. Her educational work is precious in the heart of a prestigious Faculty such as the “Auxilium”, which promotes formation for young men and women religious around the world. May the Lord continue to enlighten her, so that she may help the students of the 5 continents of the world to grow in the knowledge of the personality to be educated according to the plan of God. In this way universal values are transmitted. We entrust her to the mercy of the loving God, so that the exercise of her mission may contribute to the human and spiritual development of young people.”
The National Center of the Haitian Apostolate (NCHA) was founded in the years after the 1970s by Bishop Guy Sansaricq and other Haitian priests who served in the United States. In October 1988, it was officially affiliated with the Pastoral Office for Migrants and Refugees of the United States Catholic Bishops’ Conference and incorporated in Albany, New York, as a non-profit organization. Its mission is to meet the spiritual needs of a growing Haitian American Catholic community and ensure their regular and gradual integration into the American Church. There are approximately 1,500,000 Haitians in the United States, mostly recent immigrants. Over two thirds of that number are Catholics, a fact that indicates Haitians as the largest group of Haitian Catholic immigrants.
