VENEZUELA: “When night falls, the heart sinks and the tears flow” 

Venezuela is in mourning. Pain is everywhere, and the Church is often the only source of hope.

“Feelings are very mixed. We are here to accompany, to counsel and to support those who have suffered human losses, but also the many who have lost their jobs. We commend ourselves to the Lord, asking him to help us every day. In the morning we fill ourselves with His strength, with God’s spirit, to better serve our communities. But at night the heart sinks, and since we are merely human, the tears flow,” says Fr Daniel Acosta, the parish priest of Tarmas, speaking to a delegation from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that is visiting the Diocese of La Guaira, one of the most badly affected by the earthquakes of 24 June.

The priests’ words are a summary of what the bishop and many priests and religious feel at the end of each day, when silence sets in and the mind begins to recall all that has happened in this diocese, which was almost fully razed by the catastrophe. Fr Daniel, who lost his home, says that the most painful losses are of friends. “So many people, so many friendships gone. It hurts badly when you realise that somebody you knew your whole life has gone, after years of sharing everything with them.” And every day that goes by, the real magnitude of the tragedy becomes clearer.

Mass is being celebrated in the parish of Our Lady of Candelaria, in Caraballeda. The Church is under construction, and does not even have walls or a ceiling yet. Fr Laudence Betancourt tells ACN that it was not usually used for daily mass, but now they have five times more faithful coming to seek consolation. The church is open from 7 am to 19 pm. At the entrance people are greeted by a poster with three lists: the dead, the missing and the rescued.

Next to the altar, 13 square wooden boxes sit on two tables draped in violet. They contain the ashes of bodies extracted from the rubble in the past days. Their families took them there for a memorial service.

This one contains Daniel’s wife, that one has Gloria’s twin sister, and there are the parents and sisters of a young girl. Her entire family. Two friends help her carry in the urns. Steeped in emotion, Bishop Pablo Modesto points to one box containing the ashes of a young girl, she was an altar server and carried his crozier during the recent solemnity of St John, shortly before the earthquake. Can this much grief even be expressed? Are there sufficient words for so many condolences?

The most common gesture these days is the hug. There are many hugs, because people need to show each other that they are not alone, but words do not suffice. Such as the way that after mass Archbishop Raul Biord of Caracas, but formerly bishop of La Guaira, embraces Daniel, who he has known since he was a boy. For several minutes Daniel leans in, letting himself be held, looking for support. The hug does not take away the pain, but it can bring some consolation.

Because you can’t embrace the bodies of those who have died, and there was no time for goodbyes. So many people have had such terrible experiences. ACN hears of one young girl who received a call from the parents of a friend. They were in hospital, because of the earthquake, but had no news of their two daughters. They asked her to go to the morgue to see if they were there. She had to go through two hundred bodies, one by one. There they were, the two sisters and another friend. The heart sinks.

Fr Laudence Betancourt tells ACN how he spent ten days visiting a spot where they were searching for the children of a couple from the parish. By the end they knew that they would not find them alive, but they wanted the priest to be there to pray for them before they took the bodies of the 23- and 16-year-olds. On the last day he was there for 12 hours, until 2 am, when they finally extracted them. At 6 am he was being called to go to another building, to pray over another body. The heart sinks.

Venezuela is in mourning. The Church is in mourning. These people are family, brethren, faithful who have been in the parish for years. One of the most badly affected is the parish of Oscar Arnulfo, in Ciudad Chavez. Fr Alfredo Bustamante, the parish priest, tells ACN that “this was a young parish, but it has been practically destroyed. Around 80% of the faithful have died. We lost entire families, grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren. Only four members of our choir survived, and I lost four of my altar servers. It has been hell.”

Ciudad Chavez had a population of 22,500 people. The number of dead is still unknown, but all the residents have lost their homes, including Fr Alfredo. Some have collapsed, others are twisted like cardboard boxes, and others burned. It looks like a terrible war zone. A ghost city. Many people also lost their jobs. La Guaira depended mostly on tourism, the port and the airport. Everything was destroyed.

The only thing left standing was the shrine to Saint Gregorio, a Venezuelan doctor who cared for the poor and who will now have to intercede to heal the wounds on so many souls. His statue, which was on a pedestal three or four meters high, landed on its feet, as if to show its dear Venezuelan brethren that it is there for them. But as Fr Alfredo points out: “If you look into its eyes, you’ll see that he looks sad.”

This is also a story of miracles. In the end, many were also saved from near apocalyptic destruction. During the sermon in the Church of Candelaria, Bishop Pablo Modesto speaks about the miracle of surviving. He also thought that he was at the end of the line when, after seeking refuge under the door frame, during the first tremor, he heard a brutal, voracious roar, and thought that was it.

He later learned the noise had come from the collapse of the five buildings next to the seminary. With great difficulty, he managed to get out. Several walls had collapsed, but none of the sixteen seminarians suffered serious injury. They carried out two patients, as best they could. These were difficult moments. “But in the end, it’s the miracle of why we made it but others didn’t. It’s difficult to understand, but these are things we need to ponder in our hearts. Like Mary. And to realise that if God gave us the gift of life – and it was a gift – it is so that we can live in service to others, and not just give up. The question is not why I am alive, but what for.”

Many of those who are consoling, helping in the support centres, working with Caritas and cooperating with parishes, have also lost family, friends, home and work. They welcome ACN with hugs, gratitude, and with a smile for the fact that we came. They share what they have. This is other side of mourning, the faith of those who, despite the pain, are serving their neighbours. It is a resilient and grateful faith. It is the great witness of what the little Diocese of La Guaira has to give the universal Church.