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Christopher Hartley


Christopher Hartley (born 1959) is a British-Spanish Catholic missionary priest who worked from 1997 to 2006 to improve the working and living conditions of the Haitian sugar cane workers in San José de los Llanos in the province of San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic. His work there was the subject of the documentary film The Price of Sugar (2008), produced and directed by Bill Haney.

Christopher Hartley Sartorius was born in 1959. His father was a wealthy Englishman and an Anglican. His mother was a Spanish aristocrat. He decided to become a priest at the age of 15 and, though he was living in Madrid, chose to attend the more conservative and rigorous seminary in Toledo.

He was inspired by Mother Teresa and met her in London in 1977. He helped open one of her missions in Madrid and spent several summers working for her in Calcutta. He attached himself to the Archdiocese of New York, where he worked to promote vocations in the Spanish-speaking community.

He was ordained a priest by Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1982. He then worked for eight years in New York at several parishes in the Bronx. He earned his doctorate in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome from 1992 to 1995. Upon his return to NY, Cardinal John O'Connor, whom he considered a mentor and friend, named him pastor of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral parish.

Hartley decided to return to missionary work rather than the clerical career O'Connor was planning for him in New York. The diocese of San Pedro de Macorís in Santo Domingo was very short of priests, so its bishop welcomed Hartley when O'Connor recommended him. His assignment to Santo Domingo as a priest of the NY Archdiocese was renewed for years.


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