About 500 Catholic mission churches anchor a uniquely New Mexican way of life for their communities. But it's becoming increasingly difficult to find the necessary resources to preserve the churches.
CORDOVA, New Mexico Ever since missionaries started building churches out of mud 400 years ago in what was the isolated frontier of the Spanish empire, tiny mountain communities like Cordova relied on their own resources to keep the faith going.
With congregations dwindling and villages emptying out, maintaining hundreds of historic adobe churches – made with mud and straw centuries ago – is a daunting challenge across rural New Mexico.
Community leaders who are the churches' caretakers in the absence of regular clergy are trying to save them because they represent a crucial center of faith, family and cultural traditions for their struggling hamlets. But as youth leave in droves, their ranks are thinning, putting a unique faith and social culture under threat.