The number of parishes hit by the earthquake last 19th of September grew till 176 during the last hours. After a more detailed evaluation, it turned out that several churches from the XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries are seriously damaged, half-ruined or so damaged that they will be lost forever after their complete destruction will be obliged.

Domes, towers, bell towers, altars, sanctuaries and walls along with very old altarpieces and a huge variety of sculptures, baptismal fonts and sacred objects of all kinds got damaged or buried under tons of rubble, without knowing how the several dioceses will face the disaster of faith, though they wait technically for a miracle.

In Joquicingo and San Juan Atzingo where the bells used to ring at 5 am, then at noon and later for the evening ritual stopped to be listened to a week ago, the same in Tlatempa and in fact 300 temples all over the country when the earthquake stopped the ancient bronzes or tear them down to the grown with their towers.

Temples that had made to stand for 300 years or even more, finally succumbed on last September 19th in several localities all over the territory and even in distant and inaccessible communities that despite their ancestral isolation, were conquered by the faith centuries ago.

In the official record of damages released on Monday by the state government, the inventory of the religious infrastructure reached the 176 temples damaged in a serious way though there is another record not released yet about the minor damages.

Only in Ocuilan, the second municipality most affected by the earthquake, fleeting but deadly, brought down 16 churches with a huge social, cultural and historical value, such as de parish of the main square which was built in the XVI century and won’t be able to be recovered ever; or the one in Santa María, also from XVI century as well as the one in San Juan Atzingo, which according to the Mayor Felix Linares, it is full lost and definitive.

In some other locations such as Joquicingo, the Virgen de la Sumisión church leads the red numbers after its high main dome collapsed while the beautiful vault of the church of Xalatlaco might crumble at any moment due to all of the cracks that are visible from any point.

In Amecameca the disaster isn’t less serious, at Gualupita church a tower fell down and got completely destroyed next to the atrium; while in Villa Guerrero, the left tower fell down with all of its bronze from more than a century ago.

In Metepec some points of the old San Juan Bautista church were closed since they showed cracks that were still evaluated; while in Valle de Chalco, it is thought that 15% of all of the churches in the area got damaged.

Due to this, domes, towers and even atriums are in danger of collapsing or completely cracked as in Amecameca.

A HIT TO THE FAITH IS A MORAL HIT

Asked about this religious catastrophe, the historian Alejandro Moreno said that the damages to the religious structure are not only reduced to merely material losses, we have to remember that in almost every single community and main squares of the municipalities no matter how small they are, most of the social and cultural life in Mexico has been organized around these spaces for centuries.

The expert remembered that Mexico’s establishment as we know and all of its living and ancient culture, its establishment itself is linked to the conquer of the faith, which connected to the social hit of human losses and other kind of losses might represent a quite hard hit to the moral of the communities and families.

On the other hand, priests asked in Toluca confirmed that they still don’t have the steps to follow or how they will make the rebuilding of these places, since the priority now is still the support to the inhabitants and affected communities, therefore priests, seminarians and nuns in some cases, have been moved to the damaged areas to give a hand. They asked to not show their names since they aren’t official sources of information of the Mexican Episcopate.

They recognized that in some municipalities like Joquicingo, Malinalco, Ocuilan and Tenancingo, the religious services are in crisis, though in some cases they are starting to give messages to make the services in private houses or places provided by the inhabitants themselves.








Tere Montaño