Katrina and Rita Paralyze More Than 900 Congregations

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) More than 900 houses of worship on the Gulf Coast have been destroyed, seriously damaged or forced to suspend services by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, leaving many clergy without salaries. Interviews with more than a dozen faith leaders indicate hundreds more congregations had at least minimal damage. Even as […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) More than 900 houses of worship on the Gulf Coast have been destroyed, seriously damaged or forced to suspend services by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, leaving many clergy without salaries.

Interviews with more than a dozen faith leaders indicate hundreds more congregations had at least minimal damage.


Even as Monday’s Gulf Coast damage from Hurricane Wilma begins to be assessed, Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups are spearheading efforts to help congregations affected by the previous hurricanes.

“One reality of these storms that is different from other recent hurricanes is that many of our churches will not be meeting for several months,” wrote Robert H. Bohl and Rick Ufford-Chase of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in a fund-raising letter.

One of the biggest challenges is providing salaries for clergy. That’s why megachurch pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren is leading an initiative that involves 500 small groups from his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Each of them is adopting an affected church and paying the pastor’s salary for at least six months.

“It’s very easy to raise money for bottled water,” said Warren, author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” in an interview. “It’s very easy to raise money for blankets. Nobody wants to pay the salary of a pastor. Our philosophy is help the caregiver so that they don’t have to worry about themselves.”

He said almost 3,800 “Purpose-Driven” churches connected to his interdenominational network are located in the region hit by Katrina or Rita. Of those, at least 500 were flooded, damaged or destroyed in the two storms.

Bohl and Ufford-Chase, both former moderators of the Presbyterian Church (USA), recently wrote a letter to the denomination’s larger churches to encourage them to contribute to a Presbyterian Disaster Assistance fund that will provide salary support for pastors and other church staffers. They estimated that about 62 Presbyterian churches were severely damaged in the two hurricanes.

“Their church buildings need to be completely rebuilt, and their members have scattered all across the nation,” wrote Bohl and Ufford-Chase.


“This means there are no offerings being taken, no income stream to pay salaries of pastors and other church employees.”

The African Methodist Episcopal Church has raised more than $1 million for relief efforts, including tens of thousands of dollars to supplement clergy salaries.

“It’s like the office being torn down,” said Bishop C. Garnett Henning, leader of AME churches in Louisiana and Mississippi and manager of his denomination’s hurricane response.

“These pastors have been driven out of their place of leadership in the community and there’s a void.”

The pastors of the National Baptist Convention of America are helping fellow clergy who currently are not conducting services or receiving salaries.

“Pastors in the convention like myself have committed to taking a part of our salary and giving that to a fund that the convention has that provides a supplement for pastors who are not receiving a salary at all,” said the Rev. Stephen J. Thurston, whose denomination is based in Dallas.


The Rev. Major L. Jemison, president of the Washington-based Progressive National Baptist Convention, said his denomination has placed some affected clergy in pulpits where interim pastors have been needed and is working with other groups to pay their salaries.

Bishop T.D. Jakes, whose nondenominational Potter’s House in Dallas has offered hurricane relief, said pastors who have been traumatized like everyone else are in a new position of needing care rather than just giving it.

“We are generally caregivers, not caretakers,” said the megachurch leader. “So we don’t have a point of reference to know how to stop being the doctor and get up on the gurney and be the patient.”

Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, found on a mid-October trip to New Orleans that 10 mosques had “different degrees of devastation” and only three were able to function. He hopes to appeal to the Muslim community to help.

“Just like they helped in the relief activities of the American mainstream, they will have to come forward to see that these mosques are revived and rebuilt,” said Syeed, who is based in Plainfield, Ind. “Mosques are a part of the local community.”

The Rev. William Maestri, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, said about 70 of its 151 parishes were operating by mid-October. Others were not, due to destruction or a lack of services such as electricity, water and sanitation.


“Our goal is to open schools and churches as soon as possible,” said Maestri, who also is the archdiocese’s superintendent of Catholic schools.

“The great danger right now is that people are going to wait (to reopen) until people come back, but if you don’t give them a reason to come back, why should they come back?”

Rabbi Marla Feldman, director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, said difficult issues are facing the four Reform synagogues in the New Orleans area. At least one was able to open for the High Holy Days, but many of the usual congregants weren’t there.

Her New York-based organization has set up a fund to help meet the operational expenses of New Orleans-area synagogues that insurance will not cover.

“The membership base is affected,” she said. “As people deal with their own individual needs, they’re not necessarily going to be able to continue to contribute to their congregations the way they have in the past. This is an ongoing concern.”

MO/PH END BANKS

Editors: RNS has dozens of photos depicting church damage inflicted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug. If searching by subject, designate “exact phrase” for best results.


A sidebar, RNS-DAMAGED-LIST, and graphic accompanies this story.

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