By Paul McMullen | Special to the Catholic Review

Deacon Rodrigue Mortel, who as director of the Missions Office for the Archdiocese of Baltimore inspired dozens of parishes in the archdiocese to support sister churches in his homeland of Haiti and led hundreds of Catholic high-schoolers on summer missions there, died April 22 at his home in Hershey, Pa.

Deacon Mortel, 88, led a life worth examining.

As a child, he experienced homelessness in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. In his professional life, he became a pioneering obstetrician, surgeon and researcher, and the first director of the Penn State University Cancer Center.

Photo: Deacon Rodrigue Mortel (left) baptizes a child in 2010 in his hometown of St. Marc, Haiti. (Paul McMullen/CR file)