Roof of 400-year-old church in Mexico collapses

 

ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 3, 2025 / 10:55 am (CNA).

Part of the roof of San Luis Obispo (St. Louis Bishop) Church in the town of Calkiní located north of the Campeche, the capital of the Mexican state of the same name, collapsed a few hours before Mass was to be offered for the feast of the Holy Family. No injuries were reported.

Father Luis Ángel Mendoza Pérez, spokesman for the Diocese of Campeche, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that around 3 p.m. local time on Sunday, Dec. 29, the vault of the church collapsed “from the entrance of the main door extending approximately 14 meters [45 feet] in length.”

The cave-in occurred almost two hours before the Eucharistic celebration, which was scheduled for 5 p.m.

Mendoza noted that the area where the roof fell, as well as a quarter of the church, “had been cordoned off to the faithful with barricade tape for more than a month” as a measure to protect the faithful from the deterioration of the structure.

The priest also pointed out that the church’s pastor, Father Fernando Manzo, had requested the “intervention of the competent authorities,” including the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH by its Spanish acronym).

Like all Catholic churches built in Mexico before 1992 — the year in which relations between the state and the Catholic Church were reestablished in the Mexican Constitution — the church is federal property, so repairing it is the responsibility of the civil authorities. Only churches built after 1992 can legally belong to the Catholic Church.

According to posts on the parish’s social media, on Aug. 1, 2023, a part of the church’s ceiling came loose. Faced with this situation, the intervention of INAH Campeche was urgently requested to begin the repairs. However, according to one post, “we have had no response; we can’t wait for it to deteriorate further.”

What caused the collapse?

The construction of the San Luis Obispo church, located in the central square of Calkiní, began in 1548 and was officially opened on Aug. 29, 1561, with the celebration of the first Mass. Completed in 1776, this baroque church is especially known for its wooden altarpiece that is more than four centuries old, its carved pulpit, and its baptistery, constituting an important cultural heritage of the region.

According to the spokesman for the Diocese of Campeche, the INAH detected “a structural fault dating back to when the church was finished in 1776, since the central part of the vault was thicker than the sides, resulting in a crack.”

The spokesman explained that this detail explains the constant leaking of water into the church, despite the efforts of the parish priests, who, although “they attended to the situation, a definitive solution to the problem was not found.”

Only two days before the collapse, a budget had been approved for the repair of the roof, financed by the national insurance of the Federal Ministry of Culture. “Unfortunately, the inclement weather accelerated the deterioration of the roof until it collapsed,” the spokesman lamented.

On Dec. 30, Anuar Dager Granja, head of the Civil Protection Secretariat of Campeche, appeared at the site of the collapse and, according to his report, permission was granted to use the side chapels of the church and the cloister, which don’t pose a risk for religious services.

Catholics ‘feel homeless without the church’

Mendoza said the Catholics of Calkiní are deeply dismayed by what happened, “since it’s a community with great religious fervor, and the church was in great demand for worship services.”

He emphasized that this church, located in an Indigenous Mayan community, has a “very significant value for them, because it represents their identity as a Christian community. Without the church, they feel homeless, since they consider the parish as a place of faith and encounter with God.”

This is not the first church in Mexico whose roof collapsed. In July 2024, St. Gregory the Great Church’s roof came crashing down in the town of Cerralvo in Nuevo Leon state, injuring no one. On June 30, 2024, the roof of St. Joseph the Worker Church in the town of Tala in Jalisco state fell in just as a priest was about to enter it. The church was cordoned off as it had been previously damaged by an earthquake. On Oct. 1, 2023, the roof of Holy Cross Church in Ciudad Madero in Tamaulipas state caved in, killing 11 and injuring 60. In December 2023, the roof of St. Joseph Church in San Luis Potosí came tumbling down. The church had been closed for three weeks due to structural faults.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.