Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. As a priest, he taught liberation theology and, as a president, he attempted to normalize Afro-Creole culture, including Vodou religion, in Haiti. Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies to become a priest. He became a focal point for the pro-democracy movement first under Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and then under the military transition regime which followed. He won the 1990–91 Haitian general election, with 67% of the vote.

The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB), formally known as the Society of Saint Francis de Sales, is a religious congregation of men in the Catholic Church, founded in 1859 by the Italian priest John Bosco to help poor and migrant youngsters during the Industrial Revolution. The congregation was named after Francis de Sales, a 17th-century bishop of Geneva.