Quake-Hit Mexico Church With Iconic Virgin Image Gets Rehab María Teresa Hernández - The Associated Press
go to original August 29, 2022

Rev. Adrian Vazquez makes his entrance procession as his cell phone set on a tripod live streams the beginning of an outdoor Mass held under a tent just outside the quake-damaged Our Lady of the Angels Catholic church, in the Guerrero neighborhood of Mexico City. (Ginnette Riquelme/AP)

Under a white tent on the street outside Our Lady of the Angels on a recent Sunday, the Rev. Adrián Vázquez led parishioners seated in pews and plastic chairs in celebrating 10 o’clock Mass, flanked by piles of rubble from the sanctuary left there by a deadly earthquake nearly five years ago.

To the left stood the still-broken church, with deep cracks in the walls, its half-collapsed dome supported by scaffolding and a leaning column. Behind the priest was a wax painting of the Virgin Mary, a replica of the one on the wall inside the building and all but out of sight for the faithful.

But Vázquez’s excitement was so great that it couldn’t even be hidden by his pandemic facemask as he delivered the good news: Just weeks before the anniversary of the Sept. 19, 2017, quake, work was finally resuming on restoration of the Catholic temple, which houses the treasured Virgin considered miraculous for having survived floods and earthquakes.

He exhorted parishioners to support the church as the restoration progresses, saying, “The wait is not passive, and the temple is not going to be rebuilt on its own or only with the help of the government. How can we all help?”

Set in the working-class residential neighborhood of Guerrero and carrying one of Mary’s titles, Our Lady of the Angels has a history dating to the late 16th century.

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