A Chapel Without a Roof and a Parish Hall Under a Tree: A Cardinal Tours Puerto Rico After Maria

• Cardinal Blase Cupich visited Puerto Rico on behalf of Pope Francis in December 2017
• He toured chapels damaged nearly three months after Hurricane Maria
• Catholic Extension gave US$400,000 in immediate relief
• Catholic Extension has supported 1,400 church buildings in Puerto Rico since 1908

Nearly three months after Hurricane Maria, Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich travelled to Puerto Rico from 3 to 6 December 2017 as Pope Francis’s representative. America magazine followed his visit through a landscape of collapsed buildings, roofless structures and downed power lines.

Among the places he visited was St Martin de Porres Chapel near Cidra, whose roof had been destroyed. At Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel in Caguas, a tree had damaged the parish hall; the chapel’s lay coordinator was 21-year-old Randy Tejada. At Punta Santiago, where Maria first made landfall with winds reported near 200 mph, the Chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, led by Father Jose Colon, was among the few structures still standing.

The visit highlighted the role of Catholic Extension, a Chicago-based fund that has supported the church in Puerto Rico since 1908. It had provided US$400,000 in immediate hurricane relief and gives about US$1 million a year to Puerto Rico’s dioceses, and it has supported some 1,400 church buildings on the island. Combined donations with the Archdiocese of Chicago came to US$750,000.

The story is less about one visit than about a long partnership: a funding body that has helped put up church buildings for more than a century was now being asked to help put them back.

Jamaican churches, many of them in rural districts with small congregations, will recognise the pattern. After Hurricane Melissa, the chapels most at risk are often the ones with the fewest resources to rebuild. Puerto Rico’s long relationship with Catholic Extension shows the value of a steady, long-term partner that knows the buildings, rather than one-off appeals. Jamaican denominations with links to churches in the United States, Canada or the UK may find it worth formalising those ties before the next storm.