As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.

Which is not nearly as outrageous as Pat Robertson's pact with the devil remarks because Brooks is, after all, a moderate.

Now Voodoo is most interesting. It is practiced in Catholic countries with a heritage of colonialism and slavery and its believers, for the most part, also consider themselves to be Catholic. People turn to Voodoo to address the material concerns of this world while the Catholic Church preaches indifference to this life and focuses on the rewards of heaven.

Voodoo is a spiritual supplement to a religion whose overriding concern about heaven has inspired it to turn a blind eye to real human suffering here and now. Unlike Catholicism, Voodoo cares about people. Maybe it is weird and ineffective but it does care.

Meanwhile, faced with a large population crowded into a small and impoverished land, The Catholic Church preaches against any effective form of population control. Which might just help to explain the deforestation to which Brooks alludes in his Op ED. Faced with massive income inequality and zero public spending on basics such as education, the Church preaches submission to the poor. At the same time it urges the rich to be a bit more generous on a voluntary basis but only if it is quite convenient to them.

And while the Church fails, the wealthy, who have engaged in trade with the US and manufacture for export, seem to have dropped the ball as well. Somehow it has not trickled down over the past 30 years.

Meanwhile Brooks defends the culture of the wealthy and manages to pretend that the problems of Haiti are somehow the results of the poor of Haiti, Voodoo, the 1960's and 1970's and have noting to do with the past three decades of conservative policy and religion.