It’s already shaping up to be a bad week: The collapse of Afghanistan and the earthquake in Haiti and the coronavirus figures that keep on going up and up; how much worse can it get?

Quite a bit. Tropical Storm Grace dumped torrential rains on Haiti on Monday. Oh, and Lebanon is in economic collapse.

With tmatt already covering the religion news landscape in Afghanistan (be sure to catch his note on the U.S. embassy in Kabul being tone deaf to Islamic values), I turned my attention to Haiti, the recipient of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Saturday that has killed at least 1,300, injured at least 5,700 and leveled buildings in an isolated corner of the island that’s a four-hour drive from Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Finding a religion angle when reporting a disaster is challenge enough, but finding an original angle is harder. Happily, the New York Times foreign desk came up with a jewel of a story about how the role that the churches of Haiti are playing in all of this.

For many Haitians, their only source of aid throughout their lives, in the absence of strong government institutions, has been the church, a part of Haiti’s landscape since the era of European colonialism and slavery.

Many churches lay in ruins after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Saturday morning,
In the city of Les Cayes, which was particularly devastated by the quake, clerics despaired even as they sought to project hope and resolve to rebuild.

“We are the only thing here,” said the Rev. Yves Joel Jacqueline, 44, who works at cathedral in Les Cayes with Haiti’s cardinal, Bishop Chibly Langlois, who was hurt in the quake. “There is no support from the government.”

Langlois, who is pictured with this post, is Haiti’s first cardinal, appointed to the post by Pope Francis in 2014. Of all the articles I’ve scanned, none seem to know what kind of injuries he has.

Having never been to Haiti, I wasn’t aware that churches and their relief agencies are often the only safety net for many people.