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January 15, 2025

By Kevin Mastellon
North Country Catholic

Michelet Boncoeur is from Haiti. Haiti is the third largest country in the Caribbean, and with an estimated population of 11.4 million, is the most populous Caribbean country. The capital and largest city is Port-au-Prince.

According to recent news reports, “insecurity in Haiti is rising again, forcing embassies and UN agencies to evacuate the capital amid gang-fueled violence.”

Boncoeur’s mother, Paulimene, and older brother, Luckson, live in a rural village about an hour from Port-au-Prince.

The current Diocese of Ogdensburg seminarian worries for his family and friends.

Boncoeur has not returned to his home since 2019, but he hopes that peace will return to the island nation. He would like to visit family and his home country soon.

Meanwhile, the 29-year-old is preparing for the priesthood at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland. He just completed a master’s degree in Liturgy. The next step could come this May, if God is willing, and Boncoeur is called to orders by Bishop Terry R. LaValley.

When not in school, Boncoeur lives with Father John Demo, the Pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Watertown and the Blessed Sacrament Parochial Vicar, Father Matthew Conger.

Boncoeur and seminarians Tyler Fitzgerald and Dennis Ombongi are eligible for ordination to the diaconate this year. Fitzgerald and Ombongi are both studying at St. Vincent’s Seminary in Pennsylvania.  The three men intend to transition to the priesthood and serve in the Diocese of Ogdensburg.

“I am open to work wherever the bishop sends me,” Boncoeur told the North Country Catholic. “I will go where I am sent and needed.”

Boncoeur has always felt his service to God was as a religious. “The process of discernment is hard,” he told us.
He started with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) while in Haiti. After a while, he discerned the MSC, and he was not a good fit.

The vocation call was still active though, and he joined the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), another missionary order. He was in vows to the SVD for three years. His relationship with SVD brought him to the United States and a friendship with Medenel Angrad, a fellow seminarian at the time in Iowa.

Boncoeur had to learn English as a second language. His native tongue is Haitian Creole. French is the official language of the Country, but only about five precent of the people speak or write in French.

Boncoeur was then sent to Mississippi for a pastoral experience. It was while there, during a retreat, that the future missionary discerned that he did not feel called to the work of the Society and reached out to his friend from Iowa, now a priest in the Diocese of Ogdensburg.

Now Father Angrad, the pastor in Ticonderoga, introduced Boncoeur to Ogdensburg diocesan officials and eventually to Bishop LaValley.

While preparing for ordination, Boncoeur earned a Master of Theology Degree from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois.

This has been a long discernment for Michelet Boncoeur, but it is one he relishes. He believes his “call” is to work among the people in a diocese. He believes his home now is in this diocese.

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