El Salvador's Churches Join the Casualties of Earthquake

By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER

Jan. 21, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN SALVADOR —

When the earth beneath El Salvador snapped like a whip last weekend, entire neighborhoods disappeared, schools and town halls crumbled, and thousands of businesses collapsed.

But no loss of mortar and masonry may have hurt the country more than the hundreds of churches that lay broken and blasted in the aftermath of the magnitude 7.6 temblor.

In a nation where the government has limited resources and charities limited reach, churches serve as a social and civic center for millions of Salvadorans. Even more, the church is the physical link between a people battered by disaster and their spiritual comfort.

“The church is our heart,” said Jose Ernesto Hernandez, 53, who worships at the city of Sonsonate’s cathedral, which lost part of its roof in the quake. “When the church fell, so did our hearts.”

Historically, religion has played a major role in El Salvador, most recently during this country’s bloody civil war, when priests professing liberation theology promoted social justice for the poor and were targeted for execution by extremist death squads.

In tiny hamlets set among green hills of coffee and corn, the church is often the only building large enough to serve as a community gathering place. And in the chaotic cities, churches serve as a social safety net of first and last resort.

At least 258 churches, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, were damaged in some way during the Jan. 13 earthquake, and that number continues to grow as church officials move from delivering emergency aid and take stock.

Included in that figure are national and regional icons such as El Calvario, a 19th century Catholic church in the city of Santa Ana. The front half of the church collapsed under the weight of its enormous bell tower.

The devastation nationwide poses a serious challenge to religious leaders, who face the difficult task of repairing not only their churches but also the faith of congregations rocked by years of war, poverty and natural calamities.

More than 700 people died and 140,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the quake, the worst disaster to strike this densely packed Central American country in a decade.

Cesar Amilcar Oliva, 33, was cleaning the nave of El Calvario when the earthquake struck. As the building began to shake, he ran out a side door. A supplicant praying inside was killed in the collapse.

Now, Oliva, who had one of his children baptized in the church, does not know when he will return or where he will worship when he does.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.

For now, Salvadorans are holding services in town squares and parks, beneath towering ceiba trees that once played a role in Maya religious ceremonies and in streets littered with the rubble of their homes.

And although that fills a basic spiritual need, it doesn’t answer the long-term question of how the churches will replace the physical structures that provided a space for vital community services.

“Especially in rural areas, churches are not just places of worship,” said Ken Ellis, director in El Salvador for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “They are a community center, a place where people meet. They play an important role in the social lives of the community.”

In interviews last week across El Salvador, church pastors and bishops acknowledged the challenges before them. Few churches--either Catholic or Protestant--have insurance. Fewer still have the funds on hand to rebuild.

Instead, most are pinning their hopes on a still-uncertain mix of parishioners’ donated labor, funds from international relief and religious groups, government money and help from fellow churches unscathed by the disaster.

Father Balmore Cordova is in charge of tallying the damage for the parish surrounding Sonsonate, a deeply religious western city famed for Easter processions in which about 40 parishioners carry an enormous wood-and-glass platform bearing a statue of Christ.

Like many parishes in El Salvador, a country where between 70% and 80% of the people identify themselves as Catholic, Sonsonate’s does more than simply provide Sunday services. One program designed to help poor villagers deals with the production and sale of woven grass baskets. Another fosters cooperation among small-scale cattle ranchers. The parish also has a school and offers charity.

Cordova is not sure where the parish will get the money to help repair its eight churches damaged in the quake. Worst hit was the cathedral, which dates to the 1500s.

Although the inside was relatively intact, the cathedral’s facade and part of its roof collapsed onto the front steps. Huge mounds of brick and mortar still block the entrance. Cordova estimates that repairs will cost more than $1 million and take from two to five years.

In the town square, a group of people worked to raise money for earthquake victims. One man shouted into a microphone, exhorting passersby to donate the equivalent of about 50 cents.

For some pastors, especially those in poor rural communities, the only hope for rebuilding their churches will come from outside. A few days after the earthquake, Father Carlos Amilcar Perdomo wandered the ruins of his church in San Agustin, a town of 6,000 leveled by the quake.

He had spent five years expanding the church, adding a parish hall and stained glass windows. Now the building is twisted metal and shattered brick. As he spoke, he knelt by a broken wooden statue of Jesus, picking up its arm.

“There’s no night life here, there’s no supermarket. This was it,” said the 36-year-old priest. “The government has given me a promise that they’ll reconstruct it. But they haven’t said when.”

Many in the community of faith saw the earthquake as an opportunity of sorts, the chance to demonstrate that the churches lie not in the gilded relics of a bygone era but in the power and energy of their flocks.

For one thing, disasters tend to send those who have lapsed streaming back to church: Pastors throughout El Salvador reported record attendance at services held the day after the “Black Saturday” earthquake.

But more important, many religious leaders said, the destruction has allowed churches to promote communion in a different sense: the banding together of people in the face of adversity. As the faithful help one another, they get a better sense of themselves--and of their religion.

Father Peter Danaher realized as much one day last week, when he sank to his knees in the middle of his broken church and raised his face to the sky where his roof had been.

There, in the arms of his Lord and the ruins of his church, he began to pray, his face clenched tight as a fist. And suddenly, the burden seemed less heavy.

First, he would help his parishioners rebuild the shattered neighborhood around them. With that done, the resurrection of the church was sure to follow.

“Rebuilding the community is rebuilding the church,” said Danaher, a 46-year-old New York native who has spent a dozen years in Central America as a priest. “That’s what I’ve realized.”

Bishop Medardo Gomez, head of the Lutheran Church in El Salvador, had reason for distress: Forty of the 65 Lutheran churches in El Salvador had been damaged. Instead, he said, he was cheered by the outpouring of support among his congregations for those affected by the quake.

“There is a saying that with pain there is more hope,” Gomez said. “It’s always that way. Those who have the most suffering have the most faith and the most hope.”

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How to Help

These aid agencies are among the many accepting contributions for assistance to victims of the earthquake in Central America.

Adventist Development and Relief Agency

(mark donations “El Salvador”)

12501 Old Columbia Pike

Silver Spring, MD 20904

(800) 424-ADRA

https://www.adra.org

American Friends Service Committee

(mark donations “El Salvador Earthquake”)

AFSC/Development