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September
5, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 15Oakland,
CA
Churches mobilize
with funds,
prayers for hurricane victims
Judy Archer of St. Raymond Parish in Dublin remembers
when Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans in 1965. She was eight years old
and had to be plucked from the roof of her family’s home. She walked
barefoot along a mile of railroad track to reach a shelter.
She and her family recovered, but as she saw the devastating photos of
Katrina’s destruction last week, she worried about how the residents
of an area stretching from Louisiana to Alabama will ever be able to rebuild
their lives. Especially the poor and destitute, who had so little before
the hurricane and now have nothing.
Catholic Charities USA and other religious organizations are mobilizing
relief efforts to aid them.
Experts with disaster relief say past efforts with hurricanes —
including the four that hit Florida last year — will help them organize.
Lessons learned from December’s South Asian tsunami will also be
applied.
“Just the magnitude of the area that’s been impacted alone
suggests that this is going to be a situation that’s going to take
probably close to a decade for folks to fully recover,” said the
Rev. John McCullough, executive director and CEO of the New York City-based
Church World Service.
Father Richard Greene, spokesman for the Diocese of Lafayette, La., said
people in his area — 135 miles northwest of New Orleans —
have responded to requests from authorities to provide small boats to
help rescue stranded hurricane victims.
“Parishioners called asking for me to pray for them,” Father
Greene said. “They’re leaving their families and homes to
help rescue people. When I asked them how long they would be gone, they
said, ‘However long it takes.’”
That beneficent spirit is evident throughout the area. Two Baton Rouge
parishes opened their gyms for residents evacuated from two Catholic nursing
homes in New Orleans. A Protestant church near Interstate 10 fixed several
hundred hot meals for evacuees driving by and planned to continue to do
so for at least a week.
Father Howard Hall of Baton Rouge housed refugees in his residence.
A Catholic chaplain in New Orleans, who was among the last to leave the
city the day before the hurricane hit, found shelter in a Hindu temple
in Jackson, Miss. with people from India. “No rooms were available
anywhere and a motel gave me their info,” he wrote in an e-mail
to friends. “They were very welcoming.”
Wendy Lococo, an administrator of Our Lady of Wisdom Healthcare Center
in the New Orleans suburb of Algiers, helped transfer retired priests
and lay people from the flooded metropolitan area to a Catholic high school
in Alexandria, La., 200 miles away.
“We are all now care providers, regardless of what our responsibilities
were before, since we don’t know when or if we can go back to New
Orleans,” she said.
On Aug. 31, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Hurricane Katrina probably
killed thousands of people in New Orleans. “We know there is a significant
number of dead bodies in the waters” and others dead in attics,
he said.
The death toll in Mississippi had reached at least 110. Both Biloxi and
Gulfport received extensive damage. Gulfport’s fire chief estimated
that at least 75 percent of the buildings sustained major damage. Sister
Donna Gunn of Catholic Charities in Mississippi said her agency will need
significant funds to help in the relief effort.
Besides rescue and physical aid, residents throughout the area are seeking
spiritual comfort. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Catholic, called
for Aug. 31 to be a statewide day of prayer.
“I know, by praying together on Wednesday, that we can pull together
and draw strength we need — strength that only God can give us,”
she said in a statement.
New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes, who was evacuated to Baton Rouge,
spoke on television Aug. 30, assuring people of his support.
Rev. McCullough of Church World Service said the tsunami has taught him
and other religious relief workers the importance of giving people time
to grieve over their personal losses.
“We want to be careful that we don’t just simply rush in to
begin reconstruction but to really provide adequate time to deal with
the human dimension,” he said.
Father Peter Metrejean of the Lafayette Diocese, in an e-mail message,
said, “There will be much depression to deal with in the weeks ahead.”
“The most heart-wrenching stories,” said Father Hall, “are
of families separated – a five-year-old on a rooftop alone, a parent
who had to decide which of seven family members could enter a two-person
rescue boat.”
Donations for Hurricane Katrina victims can be sent to:
Catholic Charities USA
P.O. Box 25168
Alexandria, VA 22313-9788
A man puts a baby on top of his car as he and a woman abandon their car
in New Orleans while trying to escape Hurricane Katrina, Aug. 29 The storm
wreaked havoc with the city's levee system and by Aug. 31 most of New
Orleans was under several feet of water. Officials were trying to evacuate
everyone who remained, including more than 20,000 people who'd sought
shelter in the Superdome.
RNS PHOTO/ REUTERS/Rick Wilking
