'It is a great joy': Over 160-year-old church outside Pecos reopens

PECOS — It was standing room only inside Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe on Saturday as people from northern New Mexico and across the U.S. came to celebrate its grand reopening.

The Catholic mission church, located 9 miles north of Pecos off N.M. 63, had been shut down since 2021 due to COVID and structural issues.

The church serves several small communities and pueblos in northern New Mexico, where Catholicism has been practiced for more than 400 years and is deeply linked to the culture, particularly for Hispanics.

“It is a great joy that we gather today in (giving thanks) to God ... for the grace he has given us to have completed this project, and we’re here to say thank you all,” Rev. Christopher Nnonyelu, pastor of St. Anthony’s Church in Pecos, said during Mass. Our Lady of Guadalupe is administered by St. Anthony’s.

On Saturday, about 100 people sang “Las Apariciones Guadalupanas,” “Recibe, Padre Eterno” and “Adiós, Oh Virgen de Guadalupe” and received Communion.

Some had traveled hundreds of miles, like Ron Atchley, who came from New Orleans for his first service at the church in over 50 years. Others, including 92-year-old Pecos resident Maria Julia Valencia, went inside the building for the first time.

“It’s definitely a beautiful church,” she said.

Carrying on the traditions

Built about 1857, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, or Our Lady of Guadalupe, is made of adobe. It has no water or electricity. It is lighted by candles and lanterns and warmed by a wood-burning stove. The building is surrounded by a low stone wall and graves.

Over the years, it hosted Masses, weddings and baptisms. Rosary services for the recently deceased have been held there. The church is also a popular setting for Las Posadas, a Catholic devotion practiced during the Christmas season, that recreates Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging in Bethlehem.

“We are families of faith who are carrying on the traditions of those who came before us,” said Pecos resident Corrine Roybal.

But severe cracking discovered in the church’s south wall in 2021, caused by moisture and soil erosion, threatened the structure’s stability. This and COVID forced the church to be closed to the public.

To address the damage, siblings Irene Romero, Lucille Quintana, Emily Ortiz and Mary Helen Biles, majordomos, or caretakers, for Our Lady of Guadalupe, spearheaded a fundraiser in honor of their father, Ramon J. Vigil, who was born and raised in El Macho Canyon and attended the church.

The women collected close to $175,000. Most of which came from donations, she said. The rest came from a Catholic Foundation grant.

“We went door to door, telling residents of the dire need of our church and left them with envelopes to donate,” Ortiz said. “They were so gracious and excited. Without their generosity, this project probably would not have happened.”

“I would have hated for the church to shut down because we couldn’t repair it,” Romero said.

Work included putting up 1,600 mud bricks on the south wall and adding a cement foundation that Victor Ortiz, Emily Ortiz’s husband, said he hopes will allow the building to last longer.

“I’m kind of just proud that we were able to finish this and not have to close the church permanently and kind of give up,” Emily Ortiz said. “I think the faith they (family) instilled in us kind of kept us going to make this happen.”

But Emily Ortiz and her sisters know they won’t be able to watch over the church forever.

“I want the younger generation to carry on that tradition of being caretakers,” she said.

Her son, Anthony Ortiz, 43, said he hopes to one day take the baton from his mom and aunts.

“They’ve been caretakers for years,” he said. “So, I think for us, for my generation, it’s going to be our turn soon to step in and help care for this mission.

“It’s a part of our culture, part of our ancestry and, for sure, our responsibility.”