As Haiti tragedy unfolds, faithful question God's will

 In times of tragedy and sorrow, it has always been the most human reaction to ask "Why?"

The steady wave of images from Haiti of limbs protruding from rubble and corpses piled on curbs have people asking inevitable questions about the meaning of such incomprehensible suffering.

People of faith will be asked today, tomorrow and for a long time to come:

How could God allow it?

"It shakes everyone's faith, even my own," said the Rev. Romane St. Vil, a Maryknoll priest who is from Haiti and was there over Christmas. "When I heard, I said, 'God, why? Why? Why?' This is one of the poorest places on earth. Why must this strike at this time, at this place. We will never know the answer in this life."

St. Vil is traveling to prayer services across the New York area and plans to return to Haiti as soon as he can. He knows that Haitians, stripped of the basic components of daily life, will cling to their faith.

"You have no other recourse," he said. "Faith keeps them going. It is a way to hold on. We have nothing else. We have nothing else. Everything is back to the Dark Ages, but if we are living, if we breathe, we have faith."

Natural disasters were long attributed to God before we understood the science behind earthquakes and hurricanes. But even today, when a disaster such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami wipes out entire communities without warning, many people are not satisfied with explanations about the slippage of tectonic plates beneath the earth's surface.

They ask the same questions that were asked by the biblical Job, who railed at God to answer for his immense suffering.

"Job says 'But why, God, why?' and God answers 'Did I ask your advice when I created the world? You have to trust that I know what I am doing,' " said the Rev. Gerard F. Rafferty, chairman of the Scripture Department at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. "Why do bad things happen to good people? I don't know. But it doesn't mean that I stop believing in God."

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Gary Stern is the author of "Can God Intervene? How Religion Explains Natural Disasters," (Praeger Press, 2007) a book that explores religious reflections about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and other "acts of God."