by Andrew C. Mead, Rector
 New Orleans’ Bishop, when he visited Saint Thomas on November 6, said, “Come and see.” So three of us did – yours truly, my wife Nancy and Junior Warden John Neiswanger – courtesy of JetBlue Airways, which still has one flight a day in and out of this devastated, beloved old city. Now that the Cecil B. Demille dramatics of Hurricane Katrina’s epic flooding of New Orleans are past, the water (at least for now) is drained, and people three months later are beginning to return (about 50,000 so far, out of a population of 500,000) to pick through the remains, what is there to see in this ruined, beautiful, historic city? As we landed at dusk, looking down as the JetBlue plane circled to land, we could see blue roofs on a great number of houses. The blue we saw was temporary covering for homes whose roofs had been blown off, and the sight was benign, compared to what the Bishop and clergy of the Episcopal Church in New Orleans showed us the next two days. In an important sense, Katrina has taken New Orleans back to square one; it must recapitulate its history and start again from where it began. What remains are the original, old, charming parts of the city from its beginnings – the French Quarter and all those comes with it, the riverfront, St. Louis Catholic Cathedral, the Garden District and, for our purposes, Christ Church, the first non-Roman Catholic church building in the Louisiana Purchase and the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. Louisiana’s first Episcopal Bishop, Leonidas Polk, the famous (or, if you will, notorious) “Fighting Bishop” with a plantation of slaves who was also a Confederate General, is buried there, where now great piles of relief supplies are available to anyone who comes for them. Bishop Polk’s Episcopal Chair, made from wood on his plantation by his slaves, is still in use, recently occupied by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold on his visit to the ruined city.  The poor Ninth Ward and much of St. Bernard Parish, including St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Chalmette, are devastated and, in the opinion of many, unlikely to rise again as communities. These have featured in media reports. Less publicized but just as extensive and perhaps more economically disastrous is the destruction of Lakeview, a large middle class to affluent area which included St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and School, one of the Diocese’s cardinal institutions, which drowned beneath a good seven feet of water, flooding in from the 17th Street Canal, along which Lakeview runs and whose levee is by no means secure should a squall (much less a hurricane) cause a surge in the water.A bright spot of hope in the middle of the flooded areas around the University of New Orleans (the Bishop drove us there along Elysian Fields Boulevard of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire fame) is the new Episcopal Chapel of the Holy Comforter, very much in business alongside a FEMA encampment and in a position to be a center of care not unlike St. Paul’s Chapel was for the 9/11 workers here in downtown Manhattan near Ground Zero, and, more importantly for the long term, those who venture to live and rebuild in the area.  Christ Church Cathedral, Trinity Church and Trinity Episcopal School, which are on the high old ground of New Orleans’ Garden District, avoided great physical damage and are in operation, facing frightful challenges, including drastically reduced congregations and income. Of the Episcopal Church’s other dozen churches in the city, most are heroically holding services here and there outside or under tents, where there is a remnant of faithful to do so. What one begins to realize are the countless, tiny yet critical, ramifications of the disaster which has depopulated one of America’s most justly cherished cities. The future is clearly held by various stakeholders in New Orleans. Some are very powerful financial and economic interests. Yet the Church, because it is not profit-making, has a special kind of staying power and is far more powerful in such a catastrophe. Disasters are crises which bring out character in individuals and communities. The New Orleans crisis clearly reveals the Church at its basic level, beginning as a worshiping, caring family of Jesus. For the Episcopal Church, which is defined in part by Episcopal oversight, the presence and care of the Bishop of Louisiana, the Right Reverend Charles Jenkins, in New Orleans, has been indispensable. The Episcopal Church in New Orleans has been ruined, in the words of a perceptive observer, but it is in very good hands.  The Church is her people, although it is clear that building location and endowments help. The little Anglo-Catholic Church of the Annunciation, on the edge of Broadmoor and completely flooded, was visited by its intrepid Rector, Father Jerry Kramer, a few days after the levees broke. He rowed a boat through the fetid, toxic water to see what was left; then set up shop at St. Luke’s Church, Baton Rouge, to try to locate his dispersed flock. We met his treasurer and verger, Noel Prentiss, outside the ruined Church, which has now been cleared out and is still drying. Also present was the sexton, Robin Yaeger. Both of them said the Annunciation will be back. I believe it. And it doesn’t hurt that Annunciation owns a parcel of land in the downtown business district (some of which was not flooded), on which sits a bank that is still in business; the land yields just over $100,000 a year. Enough to start again. On the other hand, Grace Church, which was started in the 1950s and flourished until the 1980s, is very much at issue, despite its impressive size. We met Betty Zachary, long-time Vestry member and devoted parishioner her whole life. She showed us the Rector’s ruined home, including his old family heirlooms destroyed by the water, and a clock, still keeping time from Daylight Savings when Katrina struck. She says Grace will “definitely” come back. If it has a critical mass of faithful like Betty it may, but Bishop Jenkins faces a number of hard truth-telling sessions with his flocks in the city, and probably many hard decisions as well.
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