Luisa Dell’Orto: The legacy of a nun brutally murdered in Haiti

In an interview with EWTN News, a missionary who has been working in Haiti for 20 years, Sr. Paesie, and an Italian journalist, Lucía Capuzzi, remembered the life of the nun Luisa Dell’Orto, murdered in 2022 while serving in the Caribbean country.

The Sister Paesie, founder of the Kizito Family Catholic community, recalled the first meeting with Sr. Luisa Dell’Orto in the parish of Saint-Louis de Montfort, in Delmas (Haiti), where Paesie runs a home for children.

“She had a child she took care of, but the child wanted to be on the street. Luisa was very worried about him, since she was at risk of being recruited by a gang. So she came with him to see me and asked me to take him into the children’s home, which I did. He was a little boy named Jutsan,” the nun shared.

“From that moment, Sr. Luisa Dell’Orto became a regular presence in the home, visiting the children frequently,” she added.

The murder of Sister Luisa generated great consternation among the most vulnerable in Haiti. Historically, violence has been part of daily life in the country, in a special way for some monthswhen organized criminal gangs rose up against the State and came to control more than 80% of the territory of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

“It was a big shock, especially because of Sister’s personality. Louise. She was a very sweet person, calm, reserved and very loved by everyone. “The violence of her death was very shocking for the children she cared for, the young seminarians and all the priests of Haiti, since practically all those ordained in the last twenty years were her students,” commented the founder of the Kizito Family.

“She taught at the Salesians and at the diocesan seminary. So her death was a big shock for everyone,” she said.

An important part of Sister’s legacy. Luisa was synthesized at the Charles de Foucauld Center, an organization that addresses the needs of vulnerable children through volunteering. The Italian journalist Lucía Capuzzi compiled the life and work of Sister. Luisa, especially the work of the Charles Center, in her book The universal sister.

Capuzzi met the nun in 2020, during a trip to Haiti to commemorate ten years since the earthquake that devastated the country.

“On that occasion I was at the Charles de Foucauld Center of Sister Luisa, which Sister Luisa had created, and where she welcomed the children of the neighborhood, she made them study in the afternoon, they did their homework and, above all, in that school they also a few studied restavek”.

And restavek is a Haitian child who is sent by his parents to work in a foster home as a domestic servant, because the parents lack the necessary resources to support him.

“Luisa managed, by talking to the people who hosted these children, to at least send them to the Charles Center so they could study,” highlighted the Italian journalist.

Likewise, he pointed out that what marked him most about Sister. Luisa was her ability to combine her intellectual work with a deep practical commitment.

“She believed that knowledge, knowledge, culture could indeed change the situation on the island,” Capuzzi commented.

“He believed it until the last and that’s why he decided to stay in Haiti, even though the situation had become super complicated. It is known that she had also received threats, that the situation had become very difficult,” he added.

Despite all the difficulties and dangers that loomed against his life, “he decided to stay and decided to bet his entire life on Haiti, on the Haitians, so as not to leave them in a difficult moment,” he concluded.