Pat Robertson: Haiti Earthquake is the Work of the Devil

Pat Robertson (actually Marion Gordon Robertson), desperate televangelist, failed Republican presidential wannabe and a charismatic in his bathroom mirror, told his slender audience of 700 Club broadcast that the earthquake in Haiti was the work of the devil.

He tells a rambling story of how the Haitians made a pact with the devil in order to get rid of the French colonists. "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal." Well, firstly, Napoleon III became President in 1848 and dictator in 1852. You should have gone for number one, Marion, my old fraud!



There is a grain of truth to this distorted story in that there was a voodoo ceremony held on 14 August 1791 that sparked the Haitian Revolution. However, the so-called 'devil' was Ezili Dantor, a spirit of motherhood and often depicted as a Black Madonna of Czestochowa, an icon imported by Polish soldiers. This spirit is also represented by other Madonna images, so that Marion's devil is actually closer to a Madonna figure than Satan. What possibly gets up Robertson's nose is the fact that the Haitians won this time even though it wasn't till 1804.

Now, Marion believes in the undisputed right of Catholics to rule the world. It therefore seems unnecessary to have a brain or any knowledge about anything beyond a distorted view of the Bible. He could have avoided being a complete idiot by looking up some history and finding out that Haiti is 80% Roman Catholic and 16% Protestant. Although the Catholic Church has kept battling to eradicate voodoo in the country you'd think they'd be contented with their army of souls. After all, as witnessed above, Haitian voodoo has so much Catholicism thrown in that the two seem almost indistinguishable at times.

What Catholics also dislike is that voodoo is fundamentally pantheistic. The voodoo creator God sits idly outside the universe whilst letting his minor deities mess about in human affairs.