Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption (Port-au-Prince)

The old cathedral was pink and white, twin-towered, neoclassical, sitting on a rise above the city since the late nineteenth century. The earthquake on January 12, 2010, brought it down. The towers collapsed, the roof fell in, the archbishop died in the rubble. It was one of the most photographed ruins of that disaster — a cathedral reduced to a shell, rebar and dust where the nave had been. What the photographs could not show was what happened next. Mass continued, held outdoors in the cathedral yard, under tarps, in the heat and rain. The Archdiocese did not wait for a building. Rebuilding has been slow and difficult, complicated by Haiti's ongoing political instability, hurricanes, and poverty. Plans for a new cathedral have been drawn and revised and drawn again. As of now, construction is underway on a new structure designed to withstand future earthquakes. The old ruin was partially cleared. But the parish never stopped. People still come to this site to pray, to light candles among the construction materials, to receive the sacraments. If you want to understand what the Church is — not the buildings but the thing itself — Port-au-Prince will show you.

Diocese: Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince

Style: Neoclassical (original); earthquake-resistant modern (reconstruction)