Crown Heights Vigil To Honor 1st Haitian-American Catholic Bishop

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A vigil in Crown Heights this week will remember the first Haitian-born bishop in the United States, who died in Brooklyn earlier this month.

The vigil, planned for Wednesday at St. Gregory the Great Church, comes a little more than a week after Bishop Guy Sansaricq passed away at age 86, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Sansaricq had served with the Diocese of Brooklyn since 1977 before retiring in 2010.

“He was a symbol of the progress of the Haitian people here and, as someone who served as a bishop, gave the Haitian community some recognition and stature as immigrant people, a ministry he served very well,” Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn told the outlet.

Sansaricq died on Aug. 21 at the rectory of St. Gregory the Great Church.

Born in Haiti, Sansaricq served as a chaplain for Haitian immigrants in the Bahamas, studied social sciences at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and eventually joined the Brooklyn diocese in 1977. He served as the national director of the Haitian Ministry since 1987 and was consecrated as a bishop in 2006, the outlet wrote.

His wake is scheduled for Tuesday at St. Jerome's, according to the news outlet. The vigil mass at St. Gregory's will be followed by a funeral mass on Thursday at 11 a.m. at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph.

Find Sansaricq's full obituary in the Catholic News Agency here.