[StBernard] (no subject)

[Westley Annis]

Churches struggle to get by in New Orleans
By Anne Rochell Konigsmark and Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY

NEW ORLEANS - There are just two services per weekend, down from six, and
folding chairs instead of the pews that were ruined. But about 800 people
are filling Our Lady of Prompt Succour church in Chalmette, La., on Sundays,
even though some have to drive more than 100 miles to get there.

Prompt Succour flooded with 4 feet of water after Hurricane Katrina last
fall, but it was lucky: The seven other Catholic churches in St. Bernard
civil parish were destroyed.

Across the region, churches, temples and mosques have struggled not only to
rebuild their homes but to re-gather their members. An estimated 900 houses
of worship in the Gulf region were damaged, destroyed or unusable after the
hurricanes, according to Religion News Service.

The archdiocese of New Orleans will close 30 of its 142 churches in New
Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, Archbishop Alfred Hughes said
this month. Seven will close for good; the others may reopen if enough
members return.

Whether other churches in St. Bernard reopen "depends where the people
move," says the Rev. Mark Lomax, who oversaw the churches there. "Where the
people are, the church will be. They're just not back in numbers at this
point, and we're five months into this thing."

Nearly one-third of the Catholic church's 1,244 buildings in the archdiocese
of New Orleans suffered flood and water damage, and more than 850 were
damaged by wind, according to the Rev. William Maestri, the archdiocese's
superintendent of schools.

The church has reopened 81 of its 107 schools and 107 of its 142 parishes,
even though many parishioners, like those at Our Lady of Prompt Succour, are
still living far away and commuting to church.

The damage has been so great that the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, headed by
former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, announced in December
that $20 million of the $90 million it will spend in the region will go to
churches and other houses of worship, which are not eligible for public
rebuilding funds.

"If they don't get help from this particular fund, there may be no help at
all," says the Rev. T.D. Jakes, pastor of a large Dallas church, who is
helping the foundation decide how to give away the money.

"Without faith institutions, you can't have a community," says William Gray,
the former congressman from Philadelphia who is pastor of a Baptist church
there. He is also advising the Bush-Clinton fund. "Their history is the
history of the community."

"Most of these pastors started and built ministries from the ground up, so
they're not people that are easily dissuaded," Jakes says.

Since Katrina broke levees and flooded New Orleans, the Episcopal Church of
the Annunciation is no longer an 85-year-old Gothic brick building on a busy
corner of South Claiborne Avenue. It is a congregation trying to worship
together, whether on the Internet, in a parking lot or now in the
comparative luxury of a double-wide trailer, where parishioners muddle
through songs without any organ or piano accompaniment.

The priest, Jerry Kramer, was once a missionary in Africa; he never dreamed
he would one day look back on that job as the easier assignment.

Kramer, 38, lost his home and his church when Katrina hit Aug. 29. The
neighborhood where he lives and works may not be rebuilt because it is too
flood-prone. In less than a year, his three children, 6 to 14, have attended
three schools and lived in nine homes. Many of his parishioners have no
homes at all. And he worries about the more than 100 people who used to
attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every Saturday at the church.

Kramer is trying to buy property around his church to install
government-supplied trailers for his homeless parishioners. He wants to
build showers and a laundry for neighbors working on their damaged homes.

Almost every day, the parish runs two relief operations, one in the church
parking lot and one in the Lower Ninth Ward. Volunteers hand out water,
bleach, school supplies, toiletries and other items to a steady stream of
passersby.

"We're running on grace and fumes," says Kramer, smiling and sweating after
a standing-room-only service in the trailer.

Kramer has been waiting months for the federal government to provide his
family with a trailer. The church had flood insurance, but new federal
elevation regulations mean it may not be feasible to rebuild it. And the
Episcopal Church does not pay for rebuilding parishes. So for now, there are
no plans for a new building. (Related story: Hotel stay extended for some)

"There's no help coming. We have to do it ourselves," he says.

A week after the storm, Kramer borrowed a boat and a Dutch journalist's
press pass and motored into the city to retrieve the church's silver and
vestments and rescue his kids' gerbil from their nearby home. The water was
so high at the church that he was able to glide over the fence out front.
The pews were floating, as were the brand-new prayer books and Bibles. Beer
cans and cigarettes littered the altar. But miraculously, the silver and
vestments were still there. The gerbil was alive, too.

Right away, Kramer started searching for his parishioners. He set up a
tracking center on the church's new website,
www.annunciationinexile.homestead.com.

By January, he had located every parshioner. About 90% have returned to the
New Orleans area, he says. Sunday service attendance is down to about 60
from 120 before the storm, but the church is attracting newcomers, because
so many other churches are closed.

Sharon Martyn says the church has become a focal point for her recovery from
the trauma of Katrina.

"Katrina taught me a lesson about what the church is," she says. "I had to
detach from the building."

In the church yard, amid the five trailers Kramer has acquired so far, a
hand-painted sign reads "Annunciation Acres Trailer Park."

"They don't teach you this in seminary - trailer park maintenance 101,
navigating floodwaters," he says. "But Africa was good training. You learned
how to make do with nothing."

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