A survey finds few in Port-au-Prince will say they serve the spirits

A survey directed by Francois Houtart and Anselme Remy in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince in 1997 asked people what religion they practised. Three and a half per cent said openly that they served Vodou. Just under fifty per cent answered Catholic and thirty nine per cent answered Protestant. Protestant denominations had been growing very fast in the capital, and part of the result records that growth. The rest of it records fear. Hurbon reads the low number as evidence that two centuries of pressure still worked, and that many Haitians would not put their name to a religion the state, the Catholic Church and the newer Protestant churches had all treated as shameful. He ties the finding to the constitution of 1987 and to the question it opened about whether the Haitian state can stand neutral between religions, which in his view has to be argued in public before anyone answers honestly.