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S.A. archivist assists churches hit hard during hurricane Web Posted: 01/21/2007 09:38 PM CST J. Michael Parker The devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina on churches underscores an urgent need to inventory religious objects and sacramental records, said a San Antonio religious archivist who has been in New Orleans tallying the losses. Brother Edward Loch, the Archdiocese of San Antonio's archivist and a religious brother of the Society of Mary, spent a week recently helping to inventory more than 1,000 religious items salvaged from four New Orleans churches and five country churches in Plaquemines Parish along Louisiana Highway 23 southeast of New Orleans. Each had had 8 to 10 feet of water and had been damaged by the hurricane's wind. Six other Catholic archivists from around the country also assisted Loch in the work. "We inventoried stained-glass windows, statues, crucifixes, chalices, holy water fonts, pictures of the Stations of the Cross and other religious objects," Loch said. Charles Nolan, Loch's counterpart in the New Orleans archdiocese, said 22 New Orleans-area Catholic churches remain temporarily closed and that six have been permanently closed. He said 114 have been reopened. His office faces many other urgent tasks, but Nolan estimated about 30 percent of the inventory work in the closed parishes has been done. Volunteers have come from all over the country to assist temporarily. He said Loch's familiarity with the names of religious objects, such as the aspergillum, was especially invaluable. An aspergillum is a metal wand with a perforated ball tip that priests use to sprinkle holy water during special blessings. "Brother Edward can even look at religious objects and say, for example, 'On the open market, this would be worth $126.36,'" Nolan said. Loch said he's been around liturgical objects all his life. He knows their importance for parishioners should they return to rebuild the closed parishes. "If those churches are reopened, these things will be available," he said. The inventory teams wore gloves and masks to avoid touching or breathing poisonous substances, he said. In St. Peter Claver Church in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, Loch had to break through a heavy coating of mold that sealed large storage drawers in the priests' vestment room. He also found a large pitcher, still filled with contaminated water. "We didn't know what we were breathing or touching. It could have oil from the refineries, acid from a chemical plant or the contents of a sewage treatment plant," Loch said. "We had soap, clean water and hand wipes with us to clean ourselves up." Few sacramental records were lost. Some priests wrapped record books in plastic and locked them in safes; others put them in portable ice chests. But at least one safe leaked, and vandals stole some ice chests after dumping the record books into the standing water, where they remained for weeks. The soaked documents were professionally dried and restored to usable condition. Only records written in water-soluble ink were beyond recovery. Loch found signs of hope and rebirth amid the destruction. A group of parishioners had been stranded for two days in the choir loft of St. Patrick's Church in Port Sulphur, La. After their rescue, they collected and saved religious objects from several other nearby Catholic churches. Loch said those items still must be inventoried. "Parishioners cleaned up the church so well that it looks as if nothing happened," he said. "Only the crucifix over the altar was left as it was. The figure of Jesus has a water mark showing how high the water rose." But he was struck by the ghost-town-like atmosphere throughout the New Orleans area. "There were whole neighborhoods with no people, no animals, no cars — nothing. It was spooky," he said. "Hotel signs were still wrecked, and some of their windows were still broken. There was plenty of evidence that something had happened." jparker@express-news.net |